Life in the UK 2024 Wales

The Life in the UK index is designed to measure the collective wellbeing of the people of the UK, looking at social, economic, environmental, and democratic aspects of life.  This publication outlines the scores for Wales for collective, social, economic, environmental and democratic wellbeing. The research is based on a representative survey of over 500 people from Wales.  It presents key findings in relation to how different demographics are living across Wales.  

Key findings include:

• Wellbeing in stagnation: Our research found no improvement in wellbeing across any of our headline measures for the people of Wales.
• Deep inequalities: People on lower incomes, disabled people and people in urban areas have the lowest levels of wellbeing in Wales.
• Democratic crisis: Trust in government and politics has reached a record low, with almost three quarters of people in Wales feeling they have no influence over decisions that impact the UK while 66% disagree that they can influence decisions affecting Wales. Carnegie UK believe addressing this problem is the UK Government’s ‘missing mission’.

We urge both the London and Cardiff governments to use the 25^th anniversary of devolution as an opportunity to rebuild public confidence by increasing meaningful public participation in decision-making in Wales.

Our Life in the UK Index shows that we can create a robust and comprehensive measure of social progress, rather than rely on GDP alone.

Carnegie UK commends the Welsh Government for its commitment to improving wellbeing but warns that long-term, cross-government action will be required to improve people’s lives and address inequality.

The evidence in the 2024 Life in the UK index indicates that progress towards the implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 has plateaued. A sustained focus on implementing the Act and on delivering the statutory ways of working set out within it is now required to see sustainable change. This action is required to make existing Welsh wellbeing legislation deliver improvements to life in Wales for local people.