Most of us have heard that our high school years were the best days of our lives. But according to a new paper by Professor David Blanchflower and his colleagues at Dartmouth University, that’s no longer the case, and the once undeniable U-shaped curve of happiness has now become a flat, hard, and difficult path to happiness.
In an article published last month, Blanchflower wrote: “There are at least 600 scientific papers that show that the happiness curve at different ages is curved and U-shaped, and that, conversely, life dissatisfaction at different ages shows a hump-shaped curve. . “Across various data and multiple indicators, middle age has consistently been the least happy period.”
“But that’s not the case anymore,” Blanchflower adds. Young people are now (on average) the least happy. Dissatisfaction decreases with age and happiness increases with age; This change seems to have started around 2017. “People are happier in their prime than in their early youth.”
It is not an exaggeration to consider the U-shaped curve of happiness universal. This curve has been found in almost all human societies tested, from rich and developed countries to developing countries, in English-speaking and non-English-speaking societies, in places with high and low life expectancy, high and low levels of democracy, regardless of income. The average, GDP or Gini index, is observed.
In 2020, in one of his articles on the universal phenomenon of the U-shaped happiness curve, Blanchflower wrote: “I found evidence of the lowest point of happiness in 145 countries, including 109 developing countries and 36 developed countries.” He continued: “I have found this evidence in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia and Africa. I have drawn the U-shaped happiness curve for each of the 35 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and I have checked it for 138 countries out of 193 member countries of the United Nations.
Today, the U-shaped curve of happiness looks like a straight line
The U-shaped pattern of happiness is so fundamental that it does not need to be limited to human societies to observe and investigate; This trend has even been observed in mammalian populations such as great apes. It seems that this curve is an inescapable part of the existence of humans and their fellows: our biology is destined to be happy in early youth and in old age, and to spend middle age in the most unhappy state possible.
But now the situation has changed. Due to the unprecedented decrease in the well-being and well-being of young people, today the U-shaped curve of happiness has become more like a flat line, which means that life satisfaction is at its highest level at the end of life and at its lowest level at the beginning of adulthood.
Speaking about the findings of his paper earlier this year, Blanchflower said, “These findings surprised us. “There was a sudden and rapid decline in youth well-being, particularly for young women, but the trends for young men were about the same as for women.” “There were changes in the data that we had never seen before,” he added.
Blanchflower explains that today, about one in nine young women in America report having a “dire mental health condition” every day of their lives. For young men, the figure is about one in 14, lower than for women, but still alarming. The team of researchers has found evidence that reports a significant increase in youth visits to mental health services, hospitalizations due to self-harm and even suicide attempts.
The phenomenon of increasing deterioration in mental health status was observed for the first time in US data. But subsequent studies by Blanchflower and colleagues showed that the problem is much broader and not limited to one country. In fact, so far this new negative relationship has been observed in more than 80 countries around the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe.
“I’ve come up with exactly the same pattern in the 43 countries I’ve looked at so far,” Blanchflower said. This is scary. “We should have thought of a solution years ago.”
But what is the cause of global decline of happiness among young people? The main thing is that no one knows the exact reason for this.
None of the simple answers justify such a phenomenon. Blanchflower emphasizes that this change “was not caused by Covid; “Covid has only continued the trends that started in 2011.” Most likely, it is not due to the stagnation of the youth labor market either, since the decline in youth welfare started almost at the same time as the global improvement in the labor market.
“To explain this phenomenon, we need to find a cause that started around 2014, is global, and has a disproportionate impact on young people (especially young women),” Blanchflower told Scientific American. “Anyone who wants to give an explanation must come up with a good reason that matches these conditions.” “I can’t think of anything other than cell phones,” Blanchflower added.
Findings from articles that have not yet been peer-reviewed are available on the SSRN server.
