Young adults today may never be as happy as their parents, study suggests

A study by Florida State University suggest that growing up in the current economic depression will leave today's young people unhappy for decades.

Although our satisfaction with life increases steadily as we grow older, people who experienced financial hardship at a young age were found to be less happy at each point in their life than those born in other generations.

The Great Depression in America, for example, was found to have a "devastating, lasting" effect on those who lived through it which was still noticeable later in life, even during years of prosperity. Under 35s are increasingly struggling to get jobs or a foot on the housing ladder.

...researchers from Florida State University examined data collected by previous studies on thousands of young, middle-aged and older people, including more than 10,000 reports on their health and well-being.

They found that each of the three age groups grew steadily happier during their lives but that older people, particular those who lived through the Great Depression, started off with much lower happiness levels than those born in later years.

Although their life satisfaction increased as the years passed, it never recovered to the same level as those who had never experienced the same hardship

The Telegraph

The research suggests that economic turmoil may impede psychological health even decades after times get better economically .

In other words, they find it hard to later develop a positive outlook on life. In light of the fact that people who live through an economic depression are forever playing financial catch up due to being economically crippled when young, that sounds about right.

So sad. I talk to a lot of teens and many are quite depressed. I find myself wishing my own child could get to experience the 80s somehow. These kids...they do not laugh like we did.

So sad, it makes me angry for them.

It's called a "depression" for a reason.

Pretty sure it's called a "collapse" for a reason as well.



Don't you think it's a complete waste of resources to make a "study" that tells us what we already know

It's as if only the most inept "researchers" are getting funded these days.

Why not fund a study that actually, oh I don't know... has benefit for society and the species.

Is that really too much to ask?

It is indeed a sad thing. Hopefully they will find a way to rise above it.

"Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation." -Sam Harris

My first thoughts are how can they claim to know the cause is economic depression?
We have so many more material things than our parents ever did.
But I get the idea that family and togetherness isn't valued the way it used to be.

What makes me sick is that the rich people have the money to make the change...

And they HOARDE that money. It could be circulating right now...

Why does one man need 100x the amount to live? HE DOESN'T.

He doesn't need a mansion, or 10 cars.
He doesn't need to suck up a huge amount of electricity and gas for it all either.
The problem is in all of us enabling the rich to continue their pristine lives unabated.

These kids are growing up with nothing because someone else has made the choice for them that they cannot grow into the life that they did.

Originally posted by SilentKoala
My first thoughts are how can they claim to know the cause is economic depression?

We have so many more material things than our parents ever did.

Certainly young people have a lot of electronic gadgets that didn't exist when their parents were young.

On the other hand, young people cannot do things like afford to buy a house, a thing that will have a major impact as they get older.

As a young adult, I'll I really have to say to this is "Oh well, we'll get over it and we'll survive." I think our generation should take a realistic attitude--admit that are economic and social status will never be as fluid as the previous generations and prepare ourselves as required. Every generation had its challenges--this is ours. We'll survive. It may get ugly--but we'll survive.

-TheGhoster

I am pretty sure that the young adults will find a happy parenting app that will help them through this phase,
That is , if they even take notice of random "studies" that pop up up on their screens making them feel worse..
They can always watch 'The juggling cats' on Youtube to bring them back from the brink

They didn`t need to do a study , they could just look at the generation that grew up during the last depression to see how they turned out.

Any increase in stress is related more to the internet age than societal environment. Marketing plays to the negative and there is a high awareness in the problems of many institutions.


Sure, the economy may have been harmful to happiness, but was the Cold War not?

Every generation has had it's crisis, every generation has many who get seeded with sadness in childhood- also, anger. It is these traumatic childhoods that fuel the ongoing dysfunction of societies at large.

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

Thats very interesting, every generation. I was thinking very much about that myself, at times. I am over 50. My father drank alot when we were little (large family, poor, blue colar), both my parents were unhappy. The same is said for their parents. Large family, poor, a drinking parent.
See, I believe it does not and never, has/had to be this way. It's that matrix of control thing, which keeps people like mushrooms. Which quashed people like Buckminster Fuller and Nikola Tesla.

Well, they didn't interview me.
I was happy well into the '80s but things fell apart in the early 90's and I've never fully recovered.

My cost of living was fairly consistent with an "R" in office but increased 5-10% annually with a "D" in office.

reply to post by ollncasino


But, what about people who were children in the late 20s-early 30s....they had little.
Very little.
I don't see those people as having been not happy....my parents, or grandparents of those younger than I am.....

Seems to me a bigger reason for unhappiness is lack of family, or community.....of something to believe in....

And, sorry, home ownership is neither a right nor a means to happiness.
Too much value is placed on material things these days.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe

Seems to me a bigger reason for unhappiness is lack of family, or community.....of something to believe in....

Very true.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe

And, sorry, home ownership is neither a right nor a means to happiness.

Someone owns the home you live in. Being retired, yet still paying rent out of a pension is a cash outflow that many retired people would prefer to avoid by buying when they are younger.

Well 23 (almost 24 birthday in a few days) and can't say I'm truly happy but nor am I truly depressed. Just several things in my own life that I'm not really liking and things could be better I suppose. Just take days in strides and hope for the best. So I'd say yeah not as happy as my parents but definitely not standing on a ledge looking down either.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Seems to me a bigger reason for unhappiness is lack of family, or community.....of something to believe in....

I think this is a big part of it. Most of my friends aren't leading what would be considered prosperous lives. But those that are unhappy are generally that way because of lack of meaningful relationships in their lives. In this digital age (which has been called the "living death"), we are increasingly isolated from each other, living in our own little worlds with our own circles. There is definitely no sense of community in the USA.

I read in the book The Naked Capitalist that one of the goals of the Establishment/ International Bankers was to emphasize the problems with society and devalue culture. This plan has been realized to a disturbing degree. I live in Denver and I feel like this place has no sense of identity, even though there is tons of culture lurking underneath the surface. We're living in an identity crisis.

Originally posted by ollncasino
Someone owns the home you live in. Being retired, yet still paying rent out of a pension is a cash outflow that many retired people would prefer to avoid by buying when they are younger.

This definitely interferes with your sense of being in control of your own destiny. Do you really want to be a rent slave your whole life? To work to exhaustion every day to pay for an apartment you're never at, to a landlord who doesn't even appreciate your sacrifices? Someone who is all too willing to kick you to the curb after loyally paying them rent for years? This can definitely interfere with a healthy psyche. It doesn't really have to do with materialism so much as a sense of independence and control.

We are being culturally and tribally destroyed. Agree with everything you just said.

Originally posted by PatrickGarrow17
Any increase in stress is related more to the internet age than societal environment. Marketing plays to the negative and there is a high awareness in the problems of many institutions.


Sure, the economy may have been harmful to happiness, but was the Cold War not?

Every generation has had it's crisis, every generation has many who get seeded with sadness in childhood- also, anger. It is these traumatic childhoods that fuel the ongoing dysfunction of societies at large.

There's a hole in your logic. This is discussing the most recent generation (Milleniums? Gen Y?) That generation's parents largely grew up in the late 70s through the 80s. I grew up in the 80s & 90s and can honestly say life was great! Very few of us gave a damn about the Cold War propaganda, war was relatively quiet and the one war we were in (Desert Storm) was an epic ass kicking from Kuwait back to Baghdad. We had hope from Reagan and Clinton, not hopeless ineffectiveness from Obama. We had a national debt which was NOTHING compared to the unscaleable monster it is today. We had hope for a positive future and our dreams were big. Granted, a lot of those dreams are today getting hosed, but when we were young we still had them. Today's kids have very little positive to look forward to, IMO. More pointless taxes, more pointless wars, more government, more indoctrination, and more nanny state bullcrap. America failed the young generation be electing losers rather than winners to DC. We owe that generation a sincere apology and, probably, owe them a hard reset of the American government.