ArticlePloS one2025
The declining mental health of the young and the global disappearance of the unhappiness hump shape in age.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Meeting the challenges to adolescent well-being: context, returns on investment, and financing.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Why Life Gets Better after Age 50, for Some: Mental Well-Being and the Social Norm of Work.Journal of labor economics · 2026Article
- Longitudinal effect of early social media use on standardized learning outcomes during school career.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Wellbeing-focused media literacy interventions in secondary schools: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Swedish Well-Being: The rising importance of age among demographic, personality, and social relationship factors.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- US State Policy Contexts and Mental Health Among Working-Age Adults.The Milbank quarterly · 2026Article
- Teaching for Well-Being: The Mediating Roles of Social-Emotional Competence and Academic Buoyancy.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Rising young worker despair in the United States.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- Examining the American mindset on community well-being: insights from a national survey.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Generational differences in mental health and drivers of youth mental health decline in Australia and the United Kingdom.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- From the body to the mind: interoception and sense of agency as mechanisms of depression reduction in the Body-Mind Axial Awareness (BMAA).Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Exploring Visual Representations of Safety in Virtual Relaxation Content: A Correlational Study.Consortium psychiatricum · 2026Article
- Regional disparities in subjective wellbeing across Europe: A fuzzy hybrid TOPSIS approach.PloS one · 2026Article
- Increased anxiety symptoms in adolescents led by school phobia: a community-based study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Association of Acetaminophen Access on Adolescent Self-poisoning in South Korea.Drugs - real world outcomes · 2025Article
- Bridging the empathy perception gap fosters social connection.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Pilot Testing an Ecotherapy Program for Adolescence: Initial Findings and Methodological Reflections.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- The Global Flourishing Study: Study Profile and Initial Results on Flourishing.Nature. Mental health · 2025Article
- Article
- Voices From the Frontline: A Phenomenological Study of Nurses' Roles in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.Global qualitative nursing researchArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Across many studies subjective well-being has followed a U-shape in age, declining until people reach middle-age, only to rebound subsequently. Ill-being has followed a mirror-imaged hump-shape. Using graphical and regression analyses of repeat cross-sectional micro-data from the United States and the United Kingdom, we show this empirical regularity has been replaced by a monotonic decrease in ill-being by age. The reason for the change is the deterioration in young people's mental health both absolutely and relative to older people. Pooling Global Minds data across 44 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, over the period 2020-2025 we confirm that ill-being is no longer hump-shaped in age but now decreases in age. JEL Codes: I31; I38.
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