Canada Ranks 11th In OECD For Life Satisfaction…But Its Young Adults Disagree

Canadians are generally satisfied with life— as long as they’re older. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) released its Life Satisfaction 2023 survey results. The country fell just short of breaking the OECD’s top ten, with the average person not quite satisfied. The biggest takeaway is the divergence by age—most seniors are satisfied with the country, while most young adults aren’t.

Canada Ranks 11th In OECD For “Satisfaction,” But Things Are Worse Domestically

Canadians are surveyed on life satisfaction, ranking from 0 to 10 with higher numbers being better. A score of 8 or higher is considered satisfied with their life in the country. 

At the national level, Canada’s average score came in at 7.2—on average people aren’t satisfied. However, that was enough to rank 11th out of the OECD, a 38-country group composed primarily of allied Western countries. 

Prior to the pandemic, Canadians averaged above 8 as recently as 2018. It’s hard to compare the methodology changes over this period, but it may indicate things haven’t recovered. 

It was fairly neutral by gender, with the share of satisfied men (50%) and women (51%) being within spitting distance. The age of the Canadians surveyed yielded a more divided population. 

Canada Is Satisfying To Most Seniors, Most Young Adults Disagree

Older households were generally more satisfied, especially amongst senior citizens. Most people aged 65 years or older (60%) were satisfied with life in the country. The share fell sharply for people aged 55 to 64 (52%), but still managed to squeeze out a majority.

When it came to young adults though, most weren’t satisfied, generally declining with age. The share plunged below half for those aged 45 to 54 years (48%), and fell two points for each younger group—those 35 to 44 (46%) and 25 to 34 years old (44%). An exception was college aged children, between 18 and 24 years old, who were split (50%). 

Source: Statistics Canada.

Without much more information, the organization chose to conclude, “The older people get, the more likely they are to report high life satisfaction.” 

Sure, that’s one way to interpret that limited set of data. The other would be different age groups are faced with different phases of the economy. When even Canada’s national police service worries a destabilizing force forming is wealth inequality for young adults and a lack of shelter security, they’re facing a very different set of hurdles than the generations before them.