| Abstract: |
We find a large decline in the life satisfaction of younger Canadians - those
below age 35 - since the mid-2010s in the Gallup World Poll (GWP), several
different themes of the Canadian General Social Surveys (GSS), and the
Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), often driven by 2-3-fold increases in
misery (very low responses) and around 30% declines in very high responses.
The declines appear in happiness levels and relative to older Canadians. The
timing of the decline is consistent across surveys. In all cases the downward
trend started before COVID-19 and continued during the pandemic. In terms of
birth cohorts, the declines are the most dramatic for Gen Z. But Gen Y follows
not far behind. Boomers, in contrast, stand out in their resilience. The
decline in younger Canadians’ subjective well-being has turned the “midlife
crisis, ” captured by a U shape in the age-happiness relationship and
frequently seen in earlier Canadian data, into a crisis for the young: most
surveys now feature a monotonically rising age curve, with happiness starting
low and rising until the retirement age. |