Personal well-being in the UK: October 2016 to September 2017

Public Health England have released 2016/17 estimates of personal well-being in the UK, with analysis by country, age and sex. The main points are listed below:

• In the year ending September 2017, there continued to be slight improvements in the UK for average ratings of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile and happiness; there was no overall change in reported anxiety levels.
• The improvement was driven by England, which was the only UK country with any changes in average reported personal well-being over this period.
• The proportion of people reporting low ratings for measures of life satisfaction, worthwhile and happiness remained unchanged since September 2016; there was also no change in those reporting high anxiety.
• In the year ending September 2017, women reported higher life satisfaction, worthwhile and happiness ratings compared with men but also reported higher levels of anxiety.
• There have been improvements for all measures of personal well-being for those aged 30 to 34, 40 to 59 and 65 to 69 years, since we began measuring personal well-being in 2011.