Life satisfaction among Canadians is on the decline.
A report released Friday by Statistics Canada said levels of life satisfaction have been tracking downward since the summer of 2021, when quarterly monitoring of key quality of life indicators began.
The findings are based on results from the quarterly Canadian Social Survey, with information collected between April 2021 and March 2024. The survey posed questions on well-being, health, time use, confidence in institutions and other social issues.
“Identifying possible reasons for declines in life satisfaction can be challenging,” the report said. “However, there are signs that the financial landscape has affected feelings of subjective well-being.”
The survey found less than half (48.6 per cent) of Canadians aged 15 years and older were feeling “highly satisfied” with their lives in 2024, down from 54 per cent three years earlier.
Not only is life satisfaction down, but so is “hopefulness about the future,” which dropped from 65 per cent to 59.7 per cent from 2021 to 2024, the report said.
“While this indicator of subjective well-being has been declining for the past few years, there is nonetheless substantive variation in life satisfaction across different demographic groups,” the report said.
Racialized Canadians
Younger adults (aged 25 to 34) had notable declines in life satisfaction in 2024, with their proportions declining an average of 3.9 percentage points per year since 2021. By 2024, fewer than four in 10 (36.9 per cent) of these adults were “highly satisfied” with their lives.
Meanwhile, seniors (aged 65 and older) maintained their high level of satisfaction, with 61.5 per cent being happy with their lives in 2024. This measure of subjective well-being has remained relatively stable among seniors since 2021.
In addition, racialized Canadians, who are younger on average than non-racialized Canadians, saw greater drops in life satisfaction than their non-racialized counterparts. The proportion of racialized Canadians reporting high levels of life satisfaction fell from 52.7 per cent in 2021 to 40.6 per cent in 2024.
“This decline was more than five times higher than the decrease observed for non-racialized Canadians, who experienced a decline in life satisfaction of 0.8 percentage points per year from 2021 to 2024,” said the report, noting in 2024 that more than half (51.5 per cent) of non-racialized Canadians were happy with their lives.
'Financially insecure'
The survey explored Canadians’ concerns about finances, learning that the country had a greater share of people facing financial difficulties in 2024 (32.8 per cent) than in 2021 (18.6 per cent).
“Meanwhile, Canadians who were financially insecure in 2024 were less likely to feel satisfied with their lives than they were in 2021,” the report said.
“In particular, feelings of life satisfaction among Canadians who faced financial difficulties saw levels drop at a rate of 2.1 percentage points per year from 2021 to 2024.”
In contrast, among Canadians who found it easy or very easy to meet their financial needs, there was an increase in high levels of life satisfaction at a rate of 0.8 percentage points per year during this period.
Among the most likely groups to be facing financial difficulty from 2021 to 2024 were working-aged adults, racialized Canadians and persons with disabilities — all of whom were the least likely to report high levels of life satisfaction.
'Positive future outlook'
In 2024, Canadians of all age groups were feeling less hopeful about the future than they were in 2021. However, this decline was most pronounced among those aged 45 to 54 years.
Specifically, in the summer of 2021, 68.3 per cent of these middle-aged adults reported having a positive view of the future, the highest proportion across all age groups. By early 2024, this proportion fell to 59.7 per cent.
“This substantial drop in positive future outlook puts middle-aged Canadians on a par with younger Canadians aged 15 to 24, who in 2021 were less hopeful than middle-aged adults,” the report said.
“However, the decrease in positive outlook among young adults was much smaller, at a rate of 1.3 percentage points annually, from 2021 to 2024. In 2024, 60.7 per cent of young people were feeling hopeful about the future.”
It's not all bad news, though, according to the report.
“Most recently, there are some signs that perceived outlook may be improving, with a quarterly uptick in the overall proportion of Canadians feeling hopeful about the future,” the report said. “Through continued monitoring, it will be possible to confirm whether this upward movement continues.”