This is just the classic happiness u-curve. People in their forties always report the lowest happiness and highest anxiety. Holds true across time and across countries and seems to be an almost universal feature of modern humans. I know everyone loves an article about how [my generation] has it uniquely bad, but millennials are financially better off than Xers were at their age, who were better off than the Boomers, and Zoomers will be better off than we a when they get to our age.
Two questions to always ask about demographic claims: is this an age or a cohort effect? And is this a global or American effect?
The finding is a little interesting in that much published research on happiness is seeing a loss of the u-curve in the Anglosphere. (Last week’s World Happiness Report covered this, for example; I work for a happiness research nonprofit that found this in our own US self-reported happiness data.) So something must be different about their data collection methodology maybe?
Zoomer anxiety went super high during the pandemic and has steadily receded since. It may be that the "loss" of the u-curve was a really just a pandemic phenomenon, and the literature hasn't caught up. But even if zoomers remained unhappier than millennials, I would still bet they get even less happy in early middle age and happier again in late middle age. You can only show loss of the curve longitudinally.
For reasons I, a GenXer, have never entirely understood, Millennials have ALWAYS been uniquely disappointed in, and/or whiny about, their financial situation. And no, it’s not because they’ve been uniquely hard done by macroeconomic developments. They were not the first generation to graduate into a recession (Gen X did too, in the early 90s), or to experience an early-career stock market crash (we did that with the tech bubble in the late 90s). And it’s not like Millennials were the only generation in the economy in 2008; Gen X were still in their 30s, lots of them just getting into the housing market themselves when all that went down.
I truly think it’s all about childhood expectations. Gen X, especially those of us who have a lot of memories of the gloomy 70s, were never led to expect that life would be easy, or fair. Who knew that would prove to be such an emotional boon decades later?
Not just their financial situation! They are a distinctly gloomy lot, I find.
As a GenX, my diagnosis is that the Millennials unfortunately developed "hopes and dreams", which as we know is the gateway to disappointment. Instead of just being delighted that the world hasn't been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust (yet! I shouldn't jinx it!) they seem disappointed that life is just work and errands, with no greater meaning or purpose.
I do think that the cost of living stuff is a lot more impactful on millennials vs Gen X right now. I’m a millennial and happen to be friends with a fair number of Gen Xers and they’re just at a different stage of life even if they have kids etc. At least in my liberal, well-off bubble, 50+ year olds are sitting on substantial nest eggs, nearly paid off houses etc. Millenials are still in what Corinne Law calls “the squeeze” - that period of time when both demands from family life (young kids who need a lot of time from you) and work (aggressive work demands on time) pile on top of each other. Add things like childcare, commute and housing costs rising and it does feel like a recipe for stress. The squeeze is supposed to ease at ages 40+ so many younger millennials are probably in the thick of it, plus exact timing depends on when you had kids so likely some 40+ year olds too.
I think the stagnant labor market is related too, at least in the professional managerial class. The cliche millennial hustle culture is real and came from being raised to believe that if we worked hard we’d make it to the top. For a while it seemed to work- companies were competing for talent, perks and promotions were flowing. Now that’s all stopped, and just at the point when we’re supposed to be making it into positions of power, we’re just supposed to feel lucky to have a job at all. It seems like office culture has dried up too, which was a social touchstone we took for granted. This is all anecdotal, but it’s pretty palpable/universal in my network and would explain the liberal correlation too.
Put another way: millennials bought into the system and are now feeling it let us down; genz never bought into the system to begin with.
This is just the classic happiness u-curve. People in their forties always report the lowest happiness and highest anxiety. Holds true across time and across countries and seems to be an almost universal feature of modern humans. I know everyone loves an article about how [my generation] has it uniquely bad, but millennials are financially better off than Xers were at their age, who were better off than the Boomers, and Zoomers will be better off than we a when they get to our age.
Two questions to always ask about demographic claims: is this an age or a cohort effect? And is this a global or American effect?
The finding is a little interesting in that much published research on happiness is seeing a loss of the u-curve in the Anglosphere. (Last week’s World Happiness Report covered this, for example; I work for a happiness research nonprofit that found this in our own US self-reported happiness data.) So something must be different about their data collection methodology maybe?
Zoomer anxiety went super high during the pandemic and has steadily receded since. It may be that the "loss" of the u-curve was a really just a pandemic phenomenon, and the literature hasn't caught up. But even if zoomers remained unhappier than millennials, I would still bet they get even less happy in early middle age and happier again in late middle age. You can only show loss of the curve longitudinally.
For reasons I, a GenXer, have never entirely understood, Millennials have ALWAYS been uniquely disappointed in, and/or whiny about, their financial situation. And no, it’s not because they’ve been uniquely hard done by macroeconomic developments. They were not the first generation to graduate into a recession (Gen X did too, in the early 90s), or to experience an early-career stock market crash (we did that with the tech bubble in the late 90s). And it’s not like Millennials were the only generation in the economy in 2008; Gen X were still in their 30s, lots of them just getting into the housing market themselves when all that went down.
I truly think it’s all about childhood expectations. Gen X, especially those of us who have a lot of memories of the gloomy 70s, were never led to expect that life would be easy, or fair. Who knew that would prove to be such an emotional boon decades later?
Not just their financial situation! They are a distinctly gloomy lot, I find.
As a GenX, my diagnosis is that the Millennials unfortunately developed "hopes and dreams", which as we know is the gateway to disappointment. Instead of just being delighted that the world hasn't been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust (yet! I shouldn't jinx it!) they seem disappointed that life is just work and errands, with no greater meaning or purpose.
Would utilizing the actual generational age splits have generated slightly different results?
I do think that the cost of living stuff is a lot more impactful on millennials vs Gen X right now. I’m a millennial and happen to be friends with a fair number of Gen Xers and they’re just at a different stage of life even if they have kids etc. At least in my liberal, well-off bubble, 50+ year olds are sitting on substantial nest eggs, nearly paid off houses etc. Millenials are still in what Corinne Law calls “the squeeze” - that period of time when both demands from family life (young kids who need a lot of time from you) and work (aggressive work demands on time) pile on top of each other. Add things like childcare, commute and housing costs rising and it does feel like a recipe for stress. The squeeze is supposed to ease at ages 40+ so many younger millennials are probably in the thick of it, plus exact timing depends on when you had kids so likely some 40+ year olds too.
There’s also a well-established pattern of unhappiness peaking around midlife with increasing happiness later in life - although more recent research apparently suggests those patterns may be shifting. For further context: https://www.interdependence.org/the-global-loss-of-the-u-shaped-curve-of-happiness/
I think the stagnant labor market is related too, at least in the professional managerial class. The cliche millennial hustle culture is real and came from being raised to believe that if we worked hard we’d make it to the top. For a while it seemed to work- companies were competing for talent, perks and promotions were flowing. Now that’s all stopped, and just at the point when we’re supposed to be making it into positions of power, we’re just supposed to feel lucky to have a job at all. It seems like office culture has dried up too, which was a social touchstone we took for granted. This is all anecdotal, but it’s pretty palpable/universal in my network and would explain the liberal correlation too.
Put another way: millennials bought into the system and are now feeling it let us down; genz never bought into the system to begin with.