The good ole’ days might not happen until you’re old, at least if you live in the United States. In our monthly temperature check of if the kids (or young adults) are alright, the answer seems to remain a resounding no, not really.
The World Happiness Report, which annually ranks more than 140 countries based on self-reported happiness scores, took a generational dive into data for the first time. The authors found young people tend to be the happiest in most regions. But that pattern doesn’t hold for the youth in four English-speaking countries including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In these regions, happiness rankings for older respondents are much higher than for the young. In America, young adults are so bummed out that it’s driven down the national average ranking.
This year, the United States dropped out of the top 20 ranking in happiness for the first time since the report began a little more than a decade ago. Adults across all ages in the nation reported lower scores, but the youth appeared to be most dejected. Baby boomers are having a relative blast playing bingo and yelling out Jeopardy answers— as the U.S. ranked No. 10 for those 60 and older. But the country plummets to number 62 for those under 30.
“I have never seen such an extreme change,” John Helliwell, a co-author of the report and professor at the Vancouver School of Economics told the New York Times, when speaking about the inverted youth and elder happiness scores. “This has all happened in the last 10 years, and it’s mainly in the English-language countries. There isn’t this drop in the world as a whole.”
Part of what might be happening can be attributed to the loneliness epidemic, as younger generations report heightened isolation after the pandemic. Millennial loneliness was almost double that of those born before 1965, in the four countries where young people was not as happy as their older peers. Even so, the report finds that in reality, millennials actually have more frequent social connections than boomers. Meanwhile, the young adults in “the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe” are much happier than older generations. (The biggest divide is in Croatia, the authors note many of the elders there “bear the most scars from the early 1990s wars and genocide following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.”)
On the other hand, young people in these largely English-speaking countries are dealing with the feeling of a lack of relative progress or a lack of success they believe was promised to them.
“There was a path, and that path was not necessarily taken away, but the path became a lot longer and harder,” Ryan Buck, a Gen Z farmer, tells Fortune, referring to his peers finding it difficult to find a well-paying job after college.
This is not an entirely shocking result, at least if you’re a millennial or Gen Zer. Struggling to make ends meet while weathering recessions during an especially vulnerable time in their lives, many in these cohorts have been pushed to depend on older generations as they deal with years of inflation and ballooning student loans.
Living to see the fabled American Dream truly fray, 74% of millennials and 65% of Gen Zers report to USA Today they feel that they’re “starting further behind financially” than other generations at the same age. The traditional avenue of building wealth—buying a house—seems to be a dead dream for many young adults in America (unless you’re expecting an inheritance). Once millennials finally were able to scrape together enough to buy a house, they were priced out by baby boomers with all-cash offers. “Millennials also feel less socially supported than Boomers” in the countries where youth happiness dipped, the report’s authors noted.
Retirement, too, has begun to feel untenable for many younger generations. Boomers and Gen Xers already report difficulty in outliving their savings, and young adults are navigating the same uphill climb but without the safety of a pension or guarantee of social security still being around. In politics and the C-suite, older Americans are holding court: The current class of Congress has a median age of 59 and the upcoming election is a fight between the two oldest presidential candidates in the nation’s history. As inequality intensifies, baby boomers are winning out, accounting for half of the nation’s wealth.
It stands to reason that younger generations feel less happy because they’re less empowered. Of course, they’re also incredibly informed of geopolitical unrest by nature of social media. Economic straits, intensifying climate change, and a pandemic all fuel the generation’s discontent.
“It’s hard to stress too much over work as we can see the world crumbling in front of us,” Ayem Kpenkaan, a Gen Z content creator, told Fortune in 2023. “Emails or even TikTok numbers seem pretty small compared to all the climate news we receive on a daily basis.”
Most (65%) Gen Zers and millennials report feeling worried about boomers’ effect on their financial future, per a survey by OnePoll on behalf of National Debt Relief, which polled 2,000 Americans, 500 from each of the four dominant generations.
The imbalance in happiness ends up bringing everyone down in the end, as the report finds that people tend to be happier living in countries where there is a greater equality in happiness. Perhaps that is what is adding to the youth’s crisis, as in North America, happiness inequality has increased—but only for younger generations.
