While past surveys have long indicated that middle age is the lowest point in life in terms of reported happiness, that may be changing.
A study published in PLOS ONE found that young people are now reporting the highest levels of misery of any age group. This contrasts with past data, which have shown that the young and the old typically reported the highest levels of satisfaction. When visualized as age plotted against unhappiness, the data would normally display a hump in middle age.
The authors, David Blanchflower, Alex Bryson, and Xiaowei Xu, first identified the shift in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey of Americans. They examined the share of each age group who reported having poor mental health every day in the past month. The data from 2009 to 2018 were consistent with past findings, showing that middle-aged individuals presented the highest rate of misery. However, between 2019 and 2024, the data shifted, with levels of unhappiness rising in the younger cohort.
“We’ve seen a change from a hump shape to a ski slope,” said Dr. Bryson, per The Economist.
The authors noticed a similar pattern among respondents in the UK. Both anxiety and despair rose sharply among the under-40s after 2016. And data from the Global Mind Project also revealed similar trends in dozens of countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The hump, however, could still show up later. Since the new study is a snapshot of unhappiness by age at a single point in time, those young people who are unhappy today could, in theory, become even more miserable in middle age.
“It’s not inconceivable that if young people start out this badly, they could be even worse off in midlife,” said Dr. Bryson.
The cause of the worsening mental state is not clear, but there are theories, such as a worsening economy. In a July study, Dr. Blanchflower and Dr. Bryson found that despair among young American workers, particularly those with the least education, has experienced the sharpest increase.