Are the Kids Alright?

So far, we’ve focused on happiness in adults, but what about young people? Monitoring The Future, a survey funded by the National Institutes of Health and run by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center, has been asking young people about their beliefs and attitudes since 1975. These surveys include a series of questions about wellbeing, including how happy people feel, how meaningful their lives are, and how much hope they have. We’ll focus on trends in wellbeing between 2012 and 2019 among 8th- and 10th graders.?

Like the General Social Survey for adults, this survey asks the question, “Taking all things together, how would you say things are these days -- would you say you're very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy these days?”

Between 2012 and 2019, unhappiness among adolescents increased by 47%, from 13.9% to 20.5%. Let’s see what else we can find in this data.

• While the proportion of those reporting unhappiness increased among both those identifying as male and female, those identifying as female became much more unhappy – an increase of 59% as opposed to 35%.
• Unhappiness among White adolescents increased the most (11.9% to 18.3%), but the overall level of unhappiness was still less than their Black (16.6% to 21.6%) or Hispanic (15.7% to 21.5%) counterparts.
• When looking at happiness by maternal education level, all adolescents experienced large increases in unhappiness, but it was especially pronounced among those whose mother did not have more than a high school education – with a 61% increase in unhappiness. In general, those with lower maternal education levels were more likely to report feeling unhappy.
• For adolescents living inside or outside of a metropolitan statistical area (something like a city), the levels and trends in unhappiness were about the same.

The survey also asks, “How do you think your own life will go in the next few years -- do you think it will get better or worse?” This helps us understand a key dimension of youth wellbeing. Are the observed trends being driven by adolescents’ perceived future prospects, either because of the state of the world or their ability to maneuver in it, or is it more about their immediate situation?

Between 2012 and 2019, adolescents reporting that they expect their lives to get better declined by 5%, while those reporting that they expect their lives to get worse increased by 58%. If we look at sub-populations:

• As with happiness, those identifying as female experienced a larger increase in poor future outlook (72% increase) when compared to men (40% increase).
• Black adolescents started out the most hopeful but experienced a 90% increase in expecting life to get worse, while White adolescents experienced a 77% increase. Hispanic adolescents started off with the most adolescents reporting that they expect life to get worse, but only experienced a 10% increase.
• Stratified by maternal education, those with more educated mothers experienced higher increases in poor future outlook.

The survey also asks whether adolescents agree with the statement, “Life often seems meaningless.” This is our first look into the other side of wellbeing. So far, the questions relate more closely to the concept of hedonic wellbeing (how happy life is) as opposed to eudemonic wellbeing (how meaningful life is). Adolescents reported a 41% increase in agreeing that life is meaningless between 2012 and 2019.

Across these major measures of wellbeing, we see consistent large increases in unhappiness and loss of meaning in life over a relatively short period of time. In our sub-population analyses, we see the largest declines in wellbeing among those identifying as female. For other sub-populations, we see somewhat more mixed results based on the question asked.

In our analysis of adult happiness, we found only slight declines during this time period, with greater impacts in some sub-populations. Children are definitely faring worse – all of the sub-populations experienced notable declines. From this, it certainly looks like we are facing declining happiness among young people in the US.

Next time, we’ll dive more into what Monitoring The Future can tell us about adolescent happiness. The survey contains fascinating questions about loneliness, self-esteem, and many other aspects of wellbeing. This data is new to me, so I’m excited for what we’ll find!

How do these survey results compare with your own experiences? Have young people shared anything with you that might deepen our understanding of what they’re experiencing? Thank you so much for sharing your insights!