Almost one-in-four 15-24-year-old females said to have negative mental health
The proportion of women in Ireland who believe they are in good or very good health fell in the ten years to 2022, and mental health has also worsened since 2016, according to a new report.
‘The State of the Nation’s Women and Girls’ also found that, among girls aged 10-17, 47 per cent were likely to meet the national guidelines on physical activity for children, compared to 62.6 per cent of boys in that age group.
However, in adulthood the proportion of women meeting the national physical activity guidelines tends to be greater than the proportion of men. Women are more likely than men to engage in recreational walking (73 per cent compared to 66 per cent) and slightly more likely to walk for transport (47 per cent compared to 44 per cent). However, men are more likely to cycle for transport (11 per cent compared to six per cent).
The findings were published by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth yesterday. It showed that that female life expectancy has increased from 83 years in 2011 to 84.2 years in 2022, placing Ireland in eighth place among the EU27 countries.
But the publication also found the proportion of females reporting that they are in good or very good health has reduced somewhat from 88.1 per cent in 2011 to 82.8 per cent in 2022.
Between 2015 and 2022 female mortality rates fell for most common causes of death. For diseases of the circulatory system, mortality fell from 273 per 100,000 in 2015, to 221.1 per 100,000 in 2022.
Men were more likely to die of neoplasms, circulatory and respiratory illnesses, and diseases of the nervous system and sense organs in 2022. However, women were more likely to die of mental and behavioural disorders, with an age-standardised mortality rate of 61.9 per 100,000 compared to 57.2 per 100,000 in men.
While childhood wellbeing scores fall for both boys and girls as they get older, the decline among girls is starker, falling from 66 at 11 years old to just 46.4 at 15 years of age.
The wellbeing scores are also lower among girls than boys, with a gap of 11 points between the genders at 15-years-old (46.4 for girls compared to 57.4 for boys).
Looking at women and girls aged 15 and over, the report notes that the average Energy and Vitality Index (EVI) score, which measures positive mental health, was 63.3 in 2023. This is an increase on 2021 (60.3) but lower than 2016 (65.9). The scores are also around four points lower than the male rates in each of the three years highlighted.
On negative health, the report references the Mental Health Index (MHI-5). Healthy Ireland defines the proportion with negative mental health as ‘the percentage with an MHI-5 score of 56 or lower indicating a probable mental health problem’.
The average MHI-5 scores for women and men in 2023 were 76.5 and 80.1 respectively. When broken down by age, women showed poorer mental health than men in every age group except the 35-44 age group in 2023.
Negative mental health was particularly higher among women aged 15-25, at 24 per cent, compared to 13 per cent among men of the same age.
On maternal health, the average age of mothers at maternity rose from 31.8 years in 2011 to 33.2 in 2022. Over this period, the total number of births decreased by 26.4 per cent, with the birth rate falling from 16.2 births per thousand population in 2011 to 10.5 in 2022.
The total fertility rate (TFR) – which measures the average number of children born per reproductive-age women – dropped from 2.0 in 2011 to 1.5 in 2022. A TFR of 2.1 is generally considered the replacement level, meaning that each woman would have to have an average of 2.1 children for the population to remain stable over time.
As well as health, the report covers the areas of demographics, education, employment, poverty and social vulnerability. Overall, the female population grew from 2.32m in 2011 to 2.60m in 2022, particularly in the older age groups.
Increases were noted in employment rates and third-level educational attainment. The gender pay gap here fell from 12.7 per cent in 2011 to 9.3 per cent in 2022, while in 2011 15.6 per cent of females were at risk of poverty, compared to 10.4 per cent in 2023.
