The Portuguese Well-being Index, which measures living conditions and quality of life, increased in 2023, statistics portal INE said.
The Well-being Index, or WBI, is now close to pre-pandemic levels, with eight of the ten areas that comprise the index showing a positive evolution between 2004 and 2023.
The factors that showed the most favourable evolution included personal security, education, knowledge and skills, and economic well-being, INE said.
The year 2020, in which the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 1.5% drop in the WBI, along with 2007, 2011 and 2012, were the only years in which the WBI didn’t see a positive evolution.
Continued increase
The preliminary data for 2023 indicates a continued increase in the Well-being Index (WBI), reflecting a period of growth that has persisted since 2012, interrupted only in 2020.
The ‘economic well-being’ index exhibited considerable growth up to 2010 but declined between 2010 and 2012. It began recovering in 2013, with progress only briefly interrupted by the pandemic in 2020. Despite recent increases, the index in 2023 remains below its 2019 peak.
Within this domain, inequality and concentration indicators reached their highest values during the period, while indicators such as net assets and employees’ net income showed the slowest growth and maintained the lowest values.
The ‘economic vulnerability’ index followed a different trajectory, INE said, showing unfavourable trends until 2013 before steadily improving in the period to 2023.
Among the ‘quality of life’ domains, ‘health’ ranked third in performance from 2004 to 2023. ‘Work-life balance’ demonstrated positive trends until 2010 but declined through 2019, with fluctuations observed in the years that followed.
‘Education’ emerged as the second-best-performing well-being component between 2004 and 2023, the data showed, consistently recording positive growth, except for slight declines in 2020 and 2023.
Tracking the data
The Well-being Index (WBI) is an annual statistical measure aimed at evaluating changes in living conditions and quality of life at a national level in Portugal.
The domains it measures include economic well-being, economic vulnerability, labour and income, health, work-life balance, education, knowledge, and skills, personal security, civic participation and governance, social relations and subjective well-being, and environment. Read more here.
