UK Teenagers Are the Unhappiest in Europe
When we're talking about a country's economy, the word "recession" is bad news. A recession is a bad time for a country: businesses fail and people lose their jobs.
But in the UK, this word has now been used to describe the mental health of the country's teenagers.
Mark Russell from the Children's Society said that there is a "happiness recession" among teenagers in the UK.
That's after data was released that showed that 15-year-olds in the UK have the lowest levels of life satisfaction in Europe.
The data, from 2022, was included in a report published by the Children's Society. The report also included results from a 2024 survey of young people in the UK.
UK teenagers had the lowest average life satisfaction score of 27 countries in Europe. More than a quarter of 15-year-olds in the UK had a low level of life satisfaction.
In the Netherlands, just 6.7% of teenagers had low levels of life satisfaction, while it was about 11% in Finland, Denmark and Romania.
According to The Guardian, Dutch teenagers have been the happiest in the world for a number of years.
That's thought to be because of things like the support they get from their parents and teachers, as well as being given independence to make their own choices.
The 2024 survey of more than 2,000 young people in the UK — aged between 10 and 17 — found that most are happy with their home lives but 18% said they were often or always worried about how much money their family had.
