The Happiness Crisis for Younger Generations in Canada and the United States: What is Different and What is Not

Using multiple Canadian and U.S. surveys over the past two decades, we find large and comparable declines in life satisfaction and other measures of subjective well-being among young Canadians and young Americans, specifically those below the age of 35. The timing of the decline is consistent, too, with the downward trend starting well before COVID-19, and picking up speed around the mid-2010s. The declines are the most dramatic for Gen Z. But Gen Y follows not far behind. There is no large gender difference, likely reflecting differing equally important challenges. We find substantial declines in all population segments when we divide the survey samples by household income, having a university degree or not, and geographic regions. One notable finding is that in the U.S. those with household income between $35k and $75k a year reported a greater decline than, and has become indistinguishable from, those of lower incomes in terms of life satisfaction and self-assessed mental problems. Canadian in the middle income category, between $40k and $100k, retain a noticeable advantage in life satisfaction over those with lower incomes. Another is that regions that started with a higher level of life satisfaction, such as the Atlantic and Prairie regions in Canada, the Mountain and West North Central census division in the U.S., fell harder than those in initially worse positions. A Canadian exception is Quebec, which started high and experienced the least, though still substantial, decline.