Social Connections

Social Connections address both the quantity and quality of time spent with others, and how much support people feel they have. Despite differences in the amount of time spent socialising, people’s own evaluations of their social connections are mostly positive and fairly similar across OECD countries. On average, people are highly satisfied with their social relationships (8.1 on a 0-10 scale), and 90% feel that they have someone they can count on in times of need. Even though men spend, on average, 40 minutes less than women in social interactions per week, gender differences in satisfaction with social relationships are negligible. Older people spend less time in social interactions and have less social support, but their satisfaction with social relationships is not significantly lower than for younger people. People with lower educational attainment are more likely than their more educated peers to lack social support.