About 6 in 10 Canadians aged 15 years and older reported having a strong sense of meaning and purpose, according to new data from the Canadian Social Survey (October to December 2021 wave).
The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on Canadians' personal well-being. For example, mental health declined with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels by July 2021. Likewise, life satisfaction was sharply lower in June 2020 compared with 2018.
Mental health and life satisfaction registered similar drops in the United Kingdom in the first year of the pandemic. Another dimension of personal well-being, "sense of meaning and purpose," also dipped in 2020 in the United Kingdom. Having a strong, positive sense of meaning and purpose means feeling like the things done in life are worthwhile. Over 2020, the massive labour market disruptions and restrictions on social interactions may have contributed to a feeling that life's activities were not as meaningful as they had seemed to be previously.
This release presents the first results on sense of meaning and purpose for Canada, measured from October to December 2021. These figures will provide an important baseline for tracking Canadians' sense of meaning and purpose in the future.
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