Explore wellbeing, sleep, mental health symptoms and quality of life. We distinguish between age groups and specify which findings relate to girls in particular.
Girls and young people · official statistics
We explore health, wellbeing, school environments and quality of life, while clarifying whom the figures describe. We present published findings from original sources. Statistics Norway's quality-of-life survey covers people aged 18 and over, while Ungdata and the Pupil Survey concern younger age groups.
NOVA / OsloMet
Published findings about wellbeing, health, friends, school and growing up in upper primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school.
Survey years vary across municipalities, and results for small groups are suppressed. Breakdowns by sex and grade are available only where the report's disclosure rules allow them.
Ungdata
A map of selected lower-secondary indicators, including friendships, wellbeing and optimism about the future.
Municipalities may have carried out the survey in different years. The figures cannot automatically be compared as though they refer to the same year.
Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training
Public data about the school environment, wellbeing and bullying, available through a documented REST API.
We must verify which groups can be broken down by sex and which figures are suppressed. The results must not be described as medical diagnoses.
SSB
Survey of quality of life, loneliness, meaning and mastery among people aged 18 and over.
The survey does not cover children under 18. Separate tables by sex and by age do not necessarily mean that both breakdowns can be combined.
Ungdata Junior · national results 2023–2025
Ungdata Junior asks children in grades 5–7 how often they feel lonely. In the national report, more girls than boys report that they often feel lonely.
Shared bar scale: 0–20 percent for both sexes and grade levels. The report summary gives exact values for grades 5 and 7. We do not show figures for grade 6 without equivalent verification.
| Grade | Girls | Boys |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 5 | 10 % | 6 % |
| Grade 7 | 13 % | 6 % |
The difference between girls and boys becomes more pronounced from grade 5 to grade 7 in these reported percentages. These figures show how children describe their own loneliness, not how many have a diagnosis. Results from different grades do not follow the same children over time.
58 percent of children in grades 5–7 reported difficulty falling asleep on at least one day in the past week. This figure covers girls and boys combined and must not be directly compared with the sleep figures for lower secondary school, which use a different measure.
The national report describes several factors that may matter in children's daily lives. These figures cover everyone in grades 5–7, girls and boys combined.
slept fewer than nine hours the night before the survey
ate both fruit and vegetables at least once every day
experienced bullying every two weeks or more often
The sleep figure refers to one night, and the bullying figure is based on children's own reports. The percentages refer to different questions and must not be added together. For bullying, the corresponding figure was 11 percent in 2021. A difference of one percentage point alone is not sufficient to conclude that there was a definite increase.
Source: Ungdata Junior 2025, NOVA Report 3/25, national summary, page 2.
An important question in Ungdata Junior asks whether children have a friend they can trust and talk to about anything. The results cover all children in grades 5–7, girls and boys combined.
are completely certain that they have at least one close friend they can confide in.
think they have at least one such friend.
These two responses do not mean exactly the same thing. We therefore distinguish between them rather than simply stating that nine out of ten have a friend they can confide in.
Source: NOVA Report 3/25, summary page 3, 'Friends are an important part of children's lives'.
Ungdata Junior 2025 summarises responses from 120,579 pupils in grades 5–7 across 268 municipalities in 2023–2025. The response rate was 85 percent. Figures on loneliness and difficulty falling asleep are in the report summary, pages 2–3. The report also covers school, friendships, health and safety.
Ungdata · national results 2023–2025
Health and growing up are also about belonging, safety and good relationships. Ungdata shows these aspects of teenage life alongside difficulties and challenges.
91 %
Answered strongly or somewhat agree to the statement 'My life is good'.
88 %
Report having a friend they can trust and talk to about anything.
84 %
Report feeling safe outdoors in their neighbourhood in the evening.
These results cover girls and boys together, not girls alone. These are three different questions. The percentages cannot be added together, and these figures alone do not tell us whether the same young people answered positively to all three.
The results cover girls and boys together, from grade 8 through the final year of upper secondary school. The report is based on 276,397 responses from 2023–2025 and is not a girls-only extract. The figures appear on page 2 of the report summary.
Ungdata · national results 2023–2025
In Ungdata, pupils answer six questions about difficulties they experienced during the previous seven days. The chart shows the proportion who, on average, reported being quite troubled. These are self-reported symptoms, not diagnosed mental disorders. Different grades contain different groups of pupils; the chart does not follow the same pupils over time.
| Grade | Girls | Boys |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 8 | 18 % | 6 % |
| Grade 9 | 22 % | 9 % |
| Grade 10 | 24 % | 10 % |
| Vg1 | 25 % | 10 % |
| Vg2 | 26 % | 10 % |
| Vg3 | 25 % | 11 % |
Shared bar scale: 0–50 percent across all grades. Exact figures appear next to each bar.
For example, 24 percent of girls and 10 percent of boys in grade 10 reported high levels of psychological distress. The report also describes a decline among girls since the pandemic. The difference between sexes does not mean that all girls experience these difficulties.
Ungdata 2025 is based on responses from 276,397 pupils from grade 8 through the final year of upper secondary school in surveys conducted during 2023–2025. These are national figures, not figures exclusively from calendar year 2025. The chart appears on page 35 of NOVA Report 4/25. The six questions cover, among other things, worries, sleep problems, low mood and feeling that everything is an effort.
Ungdata · national results 2023–2025
Young people were asked how many hours they slept the night before answering. The chart shows the proportion who reported five hours or less, broken down by sex and grade.
| Grade | Girls | Boys |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 8 | 27 % | 17 % |
| Grade 9 | 33 % | 23 % |
| Grade 10 | 37 % | 29 % |
| Vg1 | 46 % | 40 % |
| Vg2 | 46 % | 42 % |
| Vg3 | 43 % | 40 % |
Shared bar scale: 0–50 percent across all grades. Exact figures appear beside the bars.
In grade 10, 37 percent of girls and 29 percent of boys reported sleeping five hours or less. More pupils in upper secondary school reported such short sleep. This is one question about one night, not a measure of long-term sleep difficulties or sleep needs. The grades cover different groups of pupils, not the same pupils followed over time.
Ungdata also asks about trouble falling asleep and tiredness that affects school or leisure. These figures cover all pupils together, not girls and boys separately.
had difficulty falling asleep on at least three days in the past week.
were so sleepy or tired that it affected school or leisure on at least three days in the past week.
Source: Ungdata 2025, national results, page 37. The second figure is the sum of 16 percent who answered 3–4 days and 11 percent who answered 5 days or more. The responses describe perceived difficulties, not diagnoses.
Ungdata 2025 is based on responses from 276,397 pupils during 2023–2025. The figure on page 37 of NOVA Report 4/25 shows sleep duration by sex and grade. It separates five hours or less, 7–8 hours, and nine hours or more into distinct categories. The chart uses the published figures for five hours or less directly, without recalculation.
Ungdata · national survey · 2024
In the 2024 Ungdata survey, 18 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys in lower and upper secondary school reported that someone had touched them sexually against their will.
Shared scale from 0 to 20 percent. Bars show the percentage within each group, not the number of incidents.
| Group | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Girls | 18 % |
| Boys | 8 % |
The figures are based on pupils' responses to a survey, not police-reported offences or contacts with sexual assault centres. They describe this particular question and do not, on their own, provide a comprehensive measure of all forms of sexual harassment. We show one survey year, not a trend.
Source: Ungdata 2024, cited in White Paper No. 7 (2024–2025), Figure 5.2Statistics Norway · published 29 October 2026
Percentage reporting low satisfaction with their own health
Statistics Norway also reports that approximately four in ten young women experienced more negative than positive feelings. This is a rounded statement and is therefore not shown as an exact bar.
Source: Statistics Norway, 'Young adults are less satisfied but still optimistic about their future', 29 October 2026, section 'Young women particularly affected'. The figures concern self-reported satisfaction, not medical diagnoses.
In its discussion of the 2026 Quality of Life Survey, Statistics Norway describes young adults aged 18–24 as a group with lower quality of life than older people. Statistics Norway particularly highlights young women and reports pronounced sex differences among young adults in satisfaction with physical and mental health and in experiences of positive and negative feelings.
At the same time, the survey shows that young adults are relatively optimistic about the future and experience a sense of mastery. This finding applies to the age group as a whole and must not be presented as a separate result for young women.
Statistics Norway's published table for 2026 shows that 26.4 percent of all people aged 18–24 have low overall life satisfaction. This covers women and men combined.
'Low satisfaction' means a score of 0–5 on the question about life as a whole. These are self-reported answers, not a diagnosis. Source: Statistics Norway, Quality of Life, Table 1, 2026 (StatBank table 13762).
See Statistics Norway's Table 1These figures cover all young adults aged 18–24, both women and men. They must not be confused with the figures for young women above.
Source: Statistics Norway, Quality of Life Survey, 29 October 2026, 'Negative trend in satisfaction among young adults'. The comparison covers the age group as a whole and describes self-reported responses.
Among all 18–24-year-olds in 2026, women and men combined, Statistics Norway highlights two different aspects of quality of life:
32.7%
have a low score for sense of meaning in life.
37.0%
have a high score for optimism about the future.
These are two different questions, not alternative responses to the same question. The figures also do not show how many people experience both at the same time.
Source: Statistics Norway, Quality of Life, Table 5 'Meaning and mastery, by age group', 2026. Statistical table 13790.
See Statistics Norway's published Table 5Among 18–24-year-olds in 2026, single people more often reported low life satisfaction and a low sense of meaning than those who were in a relationship or living with a partner.
The figures show an association, not that having a partner or living together inherently improves quality of life. The groups may also differ in other respects.
Source: Statistics Norway, 'Young adults are less satisfied but still optimistic about their future' (29 October 2026), section on single people, partners and cohabitation, Figure 4. StatBank tables 13766 and 13794. Both sexes combined.
See Statistics Norway's Figure 4Statistics Norway finds that women and men aged 18–24 report approximately the same overall life satisfaction. Differences become clearer when they are asked about specific aspects of life:
Statistics Norway describes these differences but does not give all corresponding percentages for men in the article text itself. We therefore describe the comparison in words without drawing bars based on assumed figures for men.
See Statistics Norway's Figure 3 and source detailsStatistics Norway asks participants how satisfied they are, or how they experience particular aspects of their lives. Several questions are answered on a scale of 0–10. Low scores are 0–5, medium scores 6–8 and high scores 9–10. Therefore, 46 percent reporting low satisfaction with mental health does not mean that 46 percent have a mental disorder.
'Sense of meaning' is based on the question of how meaningful the things people do in life feel to them. 'Optimism about the future' asks how satisfied participants think they will be with their lives in five years. These are therefore two distinct questions.
Statistics Norway weights responses to reduce differences in who participated. Weighting does not necessarily remove all uncertainty. Results describe groups and cannot tell us how any individual is doing.
Source: Statistics Norway, Quality of Life – definitions (updated 29 October 2026).
Read Statistics Norway's definitionsStatistics Norway's article describes sex differences among 18–24-year-olds. It provides specific figures for young women on two health indicators, shown above. A numerical comparison with young men also requires verified corresponding figures for men. The 2024–2026 change shown here covers both sexes combined.
The survey was conducted from 4 March to 13 April 2026. According to Statistics Norway, 16,115 people responded, and responses were weighted to correct for non-response bias. The findings concern self-reported quality of life, not clinical diagnoses.
We distinguish between Ungdata Junior, lower secondary, upper secondary and adult surveys. Missing or suppressed results must not be replaced with estimates.