A major psychology study finds the U-shape of happiness has been turned on its head

For years now, research studies across the world looking at happiness across our lifetimes have found a U-shape: happiness falls from a high point in youth, and then rises again after middle age. This has been mirrored in studies on unhappiness, which show a peak in middle age and a decline thereafter.

Our new research on ill-being, based on data from 44 countries including the US and UK, shows this established pattern has changed. We now see a peak of unhappiness among the young, which then declines with age. The change isn’t due to middle-aged and older people getting happier, but to a deterioration in young people’s mental health.

A closer look at data from the US shows this clearly. We used publicly available health data, which surveys more than 400,000 people each year, to identify the percentage of people in the US in despair between 1993 and 2024. Those we define as being in despair were the people who had answered that their mental health was not good every day in the 30 days preceding the survey.

Across most of the period, among both men and women, levels of despair were highest among the oldest age group (45-70) and higher for the middle-aged (25-44) than the young (18-24). However, the percentage of young people in despair has risen rapidly. It’s more than doubled for men, from 2.5% in 1993 to 6.6% in 2024, and almost trebled for women – from 3.2% to 9.3%.

Despair also rose markedly among the middle-aged, but less rapidly. It’s gone up from 4.2% to 8.5% for women and from 3.1% to 6.9% for men. The percentage of older men and women in despair rose only a little over the period.

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As a result, by 2023-24 relative levels of despair across age groups were reversed for women. The youngest age group has the highest levels of despair, and the oldest age group the lowest. For men, the level of despair was similar for the youngest and middle-aged groups, and lowest for the oldest age group.

These trends have resulted in a very different relationship between age and ill-being over time in the US.

Between 2009 and 2018, despair is hump-shaped in age. However, the rapid rise in despair before the age of 45, and especially before the mid-20s, has fundamentally changed the lifecycle profile of despair. This means that the hump-shape is no longer apparent between 2019 and 2024.

Despair rose the most for the youngest group but also rose for those up to age 45; it remained unchanged for those aged over 45.

Our study found similar trends for Britain, based on analyses of despair in the UK Household Longitudinal Survey and anxiety in the Annual Population Survey. It also shows that the percentage in despair declines with age in another 42 countries between 2020 and 2025, based on analyses of data from the Global Minds Project.

Investigating causes

Research into the reasons for these changes is underway but remains inconclusive. The growth in despair predates the COVID pandemic by a number of years, although COVID may have contributed to an increasing rate of deterioration in young people’s mental health.

There is a growing body of evidence that identifies a link between the rise in ill-being of the young and heavy use of the internet and smartphones. Some research suggests that smartphone use is indeed a cause of worsening youth mental health. Research that limited access to smartphones found significant improvements in adults’ self-reported wellbeing.

However, even if screen time is a contributory factor, it is unlikely to be the sole or even the chief reason for the rising despair among the young. Our very recent research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, points to a reduction in the power of paid work to protect young people from poor mental health. While young people in paid work tend to have better mental health than those who are unemployed or unable to work, the gap has been closing recently as despair among young workers rises.

Although the causes of the changes we describe have yet to be fully understood, it would be prudent for policymakers to place the issue of rising despair among young people at the heart of any wellbeing strategy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.