Joana Meurkens did not have a simple begin into the brand new yr. Her landlord raised the hire of her Brooklyn house, forcing the 26-year-old actress and singer from New York to maneuver out and quickly stay between her boyfriend’s and her mother and father’ properties.
“Rent and groceries are really high, eggs are like $1 per egg now, even the subway is more expensive. So I thought, I might as well move out and save money,” she says.
Rising costs are simply one of many the explanation why younger Americans like Joana are more and more dissatisfied — alongside wars, political polarization, loneliness and unemployment.
According to this yr’s World Happiness Report
Released yearly on March 20 to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness, the World Happiness Report is a worldwide survey that ranks nations based on the extent of satisfaction of their inhabitants.
This yr, the United States fell to its lowest-ever place. Occupying the twenty fourth rank, the nation dropped out of the highest 20 final yr. Germany is now ranked twenty second and the UK, twenty third.
“But if you were to look just at youth, the United States wouldn’t even make it to the top 60,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a researcher from Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Center who labored on the report, tells DW.
Demonstrations as a brand new type of neighborhood gathering
Joana just isn’t stunned by the outcomes. In the previous two years, she says, life has not solely gotten considerably costlier, she and her friends are additionally struggling to search out jobs. Youth unemployment is on the rise, and political upheavals have left younger individuals disillusioned.
In New York, the place Joana lives, younger individuals changed partying with protesting, she says. “That’s what I feel like people my age do now. There are so many demonstrations all the time, so there are always people gathering, which I think is positive because there is a strong sense of community.”
Community is vital for happiness
De Neve has noticed that, notably within the US, younger individuals are unhappier than they was attributable to an enhance in loneliness. He stresses that communal methods of dwelling, akin to sharing meals and dwelling in households with a minimum of 4 individuals, have a optimistic affect on well-being.
“Youth today are twice as likely to dine alone compared to two decades ago. Habits seem to have changed: When I look at my students, they eat by themselves, with their phones in their hands. But our data clearly shows that people who share meals are happier,” De Neve says.
The decline of social connections, the information reveals, additionally results in political polarization and modifications in voting conduct. “We found out that people who are unhappy are more likely to vote for anti-system parties,” he says.
Youth in disaster mode
Joana’s youth was marked by political upheavals: “I was in my senior year when Trump got elected for the first time,” she says. “Then the pandemic hit, everyone had to do online school, and on my 21st birthday, we couldn’t even go out to a bar. We were having parties on Zoom.”
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the very best doable degree of satisfaction, Joana says she would charge her personal happiness at 6 — in step with the American common of 6.7. She says that her life has felt like a relentless “crisis mode.”
To cope with these crises, many individuals in Joana’s technology flip to remedy. According to a latest research inspecting 221 million prescriptions for Americans aged 12 to 25, antidepressant prescriptions elevated by almost 64% in the course of the pandemic, from March 2020 to December 2022.
“I feel like everyone is on antidepressants and anxiety medication nowadays,” Joana says.
Finnish individuals the happiest for eighth time in a row
Almost 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) away, the 33-year-old Finnish company receptionist Lisa (not her actual identify) additionally shared her ideas with DW on the 2025 World Happiness Report outcomes: “Personally, I am always a little surprised when I hear that Finland ranks first in happiness, because it’s very dark in the winter here, and things are expensive,” she says.
Lisa lives in Helsinki and charges her life at 7, constant together with her nation’s common at 7.7. “Because of the commuting, I take another point off. It takes me 45 minutes to work every day,” she says. “In Helsinki, that’s quite a lot.”
In the previous years, Russia’s warfare on Ukraine has been a central safety menace to Finland. Even although that is an extra concern for the youthful technology, the subject is relatively taboo within the nation, says Lisa, since discussing the opportunity of warfare feels too scary. The younger lady hopes Finland’s establishments will handle to keep up peace.
Welfare security web
The common family dimension in Finland is under two individuals per dwelling. Reflecting this statistic, Lisa lives by herself. She usually eats alone, as a result of after a protracted work day, she does not at all times have the vitality or time to share meals with others, she explains.
Meanwhile, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the typical family dimension ranges between 3 and 5 individuals. Consequently, it is also the area the place individuals share essentially the most meals. Yet, the area solely has two nations represented within the high 20 of the World Happiness rating: Costa Rica and Mexico.
Despite being a relatively individualistic society, Finland’s inhabitants shares a greater degree of satisfaction. How is that this in step with the well-being researchers’ information on the significance of social connection?
“Happiness is not only about sharing meals or living together, it’s a combination of factors,” De Neve explains. “If you look at Scandinavian countries versus the United States, they are sort of equally rich, but Scandinavians redistribute their wealth a lot more,” he provides.
According to the report, Scandinavians even have extra social belief than individuals in US. “People trust, for example, that lost wallets will be returned,” De Neve says. And whereas Scandinavians can belief their welfare state, Americans usually stay a life marked by anxiousness.
“Health insurance in the US is typically tied to work. So if you lose your job, you also lose your health insurance and that’s how people can get into difficult situations,” De Neve explains.
Happiness on the middle of politics
But happiness is not only a private concern, De Neve says. The information reveals that happiness has direct results on politics and the financial system, with unhappiness resulting in political polarization, diminished productiveness and finally, being a menace for democracy.
“The solution is to put happiness at the heart of policymaking and to learn from countries that are doing well, like Denmark, Finland, Costa Rica, Slovenia, Lithuania or Mexico,” De Neve says.
“I think the lessons are pretty clear,” he provides. “The well-being of societies is based on sustainable growth that respects the planet as well as meaningful redistribution of wealth.”
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier
