We spoke to Dr Katie O’Farrell, a Senior Statistician with the Central Statistics Office (CSO), who recently produced the CSO’s Growing Up in Ireland release which captured the views of a group of people who were born in 1998 about life in Ireland. Here she provides a snapshot of what we learned about the well-being of 25-years-olds from that survey, and how they feel about their relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners...

What do the patterns of alcohol use look like for 25-year-old men?
We used a measure from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to assess levels of drinking in our respondents. When we spoke to this group at age 20 just over two in five of our respondents reported levels of drinking that could be categorised as risky or hazardous. At age 25, this figure had decreased slightly to just under two in five   respondents reporting this level of drinking. Men (44.5%) recorded a risky or hazardous level of drinking more frequently than women (33.6%), with men educated to degree level or higher most at risk of hazardous consumption of alcohol at 51.2%. Overall, though, most 25-year-olds said they were in excellent (22.7%) or very good (42.1%) general health at the time of the survey; and out of a maximum score of 10, life satisfaction for this group was on average 6.5.