Why are America's youth so deeply unhappy? | The Excerpt

On Sunday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: With the world’s largest economy and its highest GDP, you might think the United States would have the world’s happiest citizens. But you’d be wrong. This year, when the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its annual World Happiness Report, the U.S. had dropped out of the top 20, landing at 23rd on the list. The reason? America's youth are deeply unhappy. What societal and cultural factors are at play here? Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre and a professor of economics and behavioral science, joins The Excerpt to share his insights into what truly makes people happy.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello, and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, June 2nd, 2024.

What makes a people happy? With the world's largest economy and its highest GDP, you might think the United States would have the world's happiest citizens, but you'd be wrong. This year when the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its annual World Happiness Report, the US dropped out of the top 20, landing at 23rd on the list. Meanwhile, guess who held onto the top spot for its seventh consecutive year? Finland.

What societal and cultural factors have led to Finland consistently coming out on top? To talk more about the latest Happiness Report, I'm now joined by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of Oxford University's Wellbeing Research Centre, and Professor of Economics and Behavioral Science. Jan, thanks for being on The Excerpt.

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Thank you, Dana, for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Social media sites are often blamed for so much unhappiness, especially in young people, but social media is definitely here to stay. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle. How can young people, or any of us really, continue to engage on social without the negative side effects, or is that even possible?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Dana, you dive right into it, didn't you? So we did, in the World Happiness Report, track the historical data around well-being, and for the first time in this year's World Happiness Report we split it by age groups. And this is where really we found that disconcerting drop in youth well-being particularly so in North America and particularly so in the United States of America.

And so for example, you mentioned the drop of the United States in our ranking from the mid-teens to 23rd in the space of just one year. As we found out, that is purely driven by youth. So if you look at youth alone, which in this case we'd consider, say, below thirties, then the US would rank 63rd in the world. And so that's whereas the above sixties in the United States would rank 10th in the world.

And so a huge intergenerational divide has kind of opened up in terms of well-being in the United States. And we've picked up that trend actually starting with the introduction more or less of smartphones and social media. And so there is definitely something to discuss around social media, what we can do about putting, if you will, the social back into social media and putting guardrails in place in terms of the way that adolescents are using social media, especially in the United States these days.

Dana Taylor:

Jan, we've recently put out a poll to our audiences on social asking them why they think younger Americans are so deeply unhappy, and the choices were money stress, social media, political polarization, or other where you could write in something else if you wanted to.

And overwhelmingly, they chose money stress as their number one reason for being unhappy. There were a lot of comments about inflation, the high cost of living. But those aren't things that most of us have the ability to control, so how do you recommend people reconcile that desire for happiness with an inability to afford the kind of lifestyles that perhaps they'd been told to expect when they were younger?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

You're right, the economy, there is inflation, cost of living, but I would add into the mix, which I think is driving a bit of this, especially for youth, is the uncertainty about the future.

So there's lots of excitement about AI and machine learning and large language models and computers and automation, but it also introduced a lot of insecurity and uncertainty for people in their future sort of job market outcomes. So they don't have a relatively, if you will, simple pathway or vision or future to look forward to in the way that I think my generation and the older generations had.

And it also puts in question this sort of natural notion of we will always do better than the previous generation. And that is I think also a question mark at this point, materially maybe, but at what costs? And who will benefit the most from these new sort of technologies? These are real deep questions that youth are actually struggling with and thinking about, and that uncertainty is definitely weighing on their well-being as well.

Dana Taylor:

Okay. So number two on that list for most people as to why American youth are unhappy with political polarization. Can you talk about how that plays into a country's happiness? And also, what would you recommend for people to do to lessen that polarization?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

It's a good point, and I think the World Happiness Report actually does have insights on this particular front, because the US is particularly polarized, and increasingly so.

And then when we look at countries that are doing really well where life satisfaction, the way we measure well-being is very high, say, the Scandinavian countries, then you find that there's much more social support. People help strangers in need. People trust the institutions, they support each other, they volunteer, they donate, et cetera. So we have data on all these kind of elements that would give you that picture of a more holistic community that trusts and supports each other.

Now, with political polarization of both the media and the politicians trying to drive a wedge between people in all kinds of ways and mostly driving on the negative news, that puts a lot of pressure on that normally quite natural human support that we have, that we care about our neighbors and try and help strangers in need. But with all the negative news and the polarization, the default now almost comes to everybody to him or herself.

And so that social support is unwinding or weakening in the context of the United States. And I think that's for us a large chunk to blame when looking at the drop in life evaluations and life satisfaction in the United States and the drop concurrently in the ranking for the United States.

Dana Taylor:

Well, I do want to talk about young Americans in comparison with, say, young Lithuanians whose ranking is number one in terms of happiness. What, if anything, sets these two groups apart in terms of lifestyle, wealth, social connection or values?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Now, I think what's going on in Lithuania is they've come from a relatively lower place than the US has traditionally been at. And there's more hope, economic opportunities. You should obviously remember Eastern Europe joined the European Union and then benefited from a lot of subsidies and transfers from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, starting in the 2000s.

And the labor market, if you will, for youth in Lithuania is one that's wide open to all of the European Union, whereas before, their parents' generation was much more closed. And so you see that there's also a positive economic dynamic. There's opportunities, there's hope, there's a future in terms of work for them.

But also, it's important to point out these central and Eastern European nations typically have a socialist background. They were in sort of the hemisphere of the Eastern Bloc, if you will, around the Soviet Union. And I think they're really pleased to have left the sphere of influence of Russia.

However, they still have that DNA around sort of sharing, so redistribution. So whatever wealth they're now generating, there is much more of a welfare state, a healthcare system, free education in place still. So those are elements of the social system, if you will, that they're keeping a hold of while benefiting from more economic opportunities of the Western world.

So they're sort of keeping the best of both worlds. They're keeping the healthcare and the school, state and educational systems while also benefiting from an upward positive trend, thanks to the more liberal market economies that have helped bring them on board.

Dana Taylor:

Well, as you mentioned earlier, US adults age 60 and older ranked 10th for happiness. What do you think accounts for this huge discrepancy in happiness across generations? Why are the boomers so happy?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Well, I think, Dana, you've put it well, and you immediately said the boomers. So they have, I think, benefited from precisely that optimism, the economic dynamics that really put a lot of wind in their sails as they were going through the same period in the late teen when they were in their late adolescence and their thirties and their forties.

They also benefited from essentially pretty much free schooling in a lot of cases, and university tuition fees that were well, well, well below what it is today. We should remind ourselves that university tuition fees, especially in the United States, have outpaced inflation rates by a lot.

So they've benefited from a lot of subsidies frankly, and a state system that was more operational. And I think that still suits them really well. Future generations have a bit tougher in a number of ways.

Dana Taylor:

So turning back to the Happiness Report, Finland's sauna culture helps with relaxation and strengthens social connections. Break down that part of Finnish culture for us, Jan. Are saunas really a part of the secret sauce that's making Finns happy?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Well, it's interesting. I think the saunas as such, maybe not, but they are an example, an illustration of society. So they will come together a lot in nature. And the Finns really, really, really show lots of social support for each other.

They help strangers in need, huge range of volunteering and donating, and they also trust their institutions hugely. And they get a lot from the institutions in return, including of course welfare, healthcare, pretty much free education, also the basis of relatively high wealth just like the United States.

But the Finns, and I have to say also the Danes and the Swedes and the Swiss and the Dutch do punch above their weight in terms of well-being for the same amount of wealth.

So really, this is also a bit of a challenge for all of our US aspiring political leaders or political leaders, is to say, "What can we do to improve the quality of life of people as they experience it," which is the measure we use, life satisfaction, "with all the wealth that's going around the United States? Are there ways of using that to better effect?"

Dana Taylor:

Okay, so as we've established, all Nordic countries fared well on the World Happiness Report. Some of that was attributed to their natural environment, lots of trees, beautiful fjords, a quiet countryside.

But for Finland, they also share a lengthy border with Russia where there have seen significant tensions recently. Wouldn't you expect Finland's happiness rating to drop given that it's now sharing a border with a nation at war, especially given Finland's recent joining of NATO?

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

Yes, thank you for that question. It's a very subtle one and a complex one, needless to say. It goes without saying that major security concerns, national security, where people's physical and mental well-being or health is potentially at risk from invasion or other major security risks, that will have a negative impact on people's well-being.

So for example, when we actually study places that are undergoing civil war or of wars of, say, of invasion, as we see for example in the case of the Ukraine, we find huge drops in people's well-being.

Now, interestingly, what we also find is that the way that people respond to that national security threat can buffer to some extent the original drop in well-being. So the negative effect of the national security risk can be mitigated to some extent by a coming together element.

So in England, they call this fellow feeling, or in America be more like rallying around the flag type of approach. So the way that communities and societies respond to that external threat can also bring them together to some extent and provide identity, sense of belonging and sense of community.

So a good example here is of course Ukraine. What we found in the case of Ukraine is a huge negative impact of the war through the Russian invasion. But at the same time, the Ukrainians have come together, they fought this together, they now believe in their leaders taking the right course of action. At the individual level we saw outsized statistics around helping strangers in need, donating, volunteering. And so you saw that it created essentially an identity for Ukraine. So in this war was also forged, if you will, Ukrainian identity.

Now, going back to the Finns and using that to some extent, their response to that long border with Russia has been really a strong one. First of all, they've now joined NATO as a result of this, which is a huge step, and also forges ties between them and between them and the rest of essentially the Western Alliance, the North American Treaty Organization, NATO. And so that's a powerful step that they've come together about.

So yes, while there's heightened security risk, it has also brought the community of Finns together, and so that's typically what we underestimate. The importance of social capital in driving population well-being or your own social ties, the quality of the relationships that you have, actual social relations, mostly in person, might also be virtual, but will mostly have to translate to in-person relationships, they matter a lot more than people think. Having that sense of belonging and friends to rely on in case of trouble is incredibly important.

Dana Taylor:

A lot to digest here. Thank you so much for joining us, Jan.

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve:

You're welcome. Thank you for having us and putting a spotlight on this really important topic.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Bradley Glanzrock for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.