Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

2/3/2026 at 7:54:23 PM

> In Sweden and other parts of the Western world, for example, recent findings point to a widening intergenerational gap where older adults report increasing well being while younger individuals experience notable declines

So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves.

by 10xDev

2/3/2026 at 10:53:18 PM

> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves.

Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even 20 or 40 years ago.

by empiko

2/3/2026 at 11:08:15 PM

I too feel this is a huge part of it, coupled with the fact that "basics" of last generation (a home you own, a stable job that doesn't overwork you on evenings and weekends, affordable options to have a family) are also being priced out of many peoples lives. You feel like you're not matching what your parents and cultural artifacts tell you you should be achieving at your age, and at the same time you're flooded with influencers on ski trips to Japan or snorkelling in Jamaica every other weekend, and it's a perfect recipe for feeling bad about your life no matter how well off you're doing compared to yesterdays median statistic.

by cayleyh

2/3/2026 at 7:56:28 PM

It's the baby boomer phenomenon. They reaped the rewards back then and are still reaping the rewards. The benefits have been following that age group through their lives. Its like a rolling window.

by polishdude20

2/3/2026 at 8:03:26 PM

somewhat tangential, but most interesting phenomeon is the phaseshift non-boomers will undergo when they're around 45, surveying what's left, realizing how much they have paid into the system already, and desperate to claim the same rewards. it's a perpetuum mobile. if it needs to end, the young will have to wrestle it from their seniors _now_, because that gap closes fast.

by trgn

2/3/2026 at 8:20:02 PM

Most developed countries are peaking in costs to young people right now. The people entering workforce now are getting a huge bad surprise, but the cost of supporting older people will start to decrease very soon.

So, if you are looking for some future phase shift, you are searching for the wrong thing.

Also, most of the developing countries will be in that situation in ~20 years. Most underdeveloped ones will get there in an extra decade or two.

by marcosdumay

2/3/2026 at 9:13:03 PM

the population bulge is at 50-60. with tfr as low as they are, we're looking at at multiple decades of a top-heavy pyramid. that's not disappearing anytime soon, it will take a lifetime.

by trgn

2/3/2026 at 8:03:30 PM

Can you blame them for existing during early globalization, before over the financialization of everything? It's not like they actively took more than they "should have" from anyone directly, it's a consequence of their local economy and where it was at the time.

by dinobones

2/3/2026 at 8:13:36 PM

> It's not like they actively took more than they "should have" from anyone directly

And who do you think exactly contributed to the over financialization of everything? Every single thing, good or bad, is a direct result of the actions of the generation before. We can thank them for creating a world where women get to vote but also criticize them for creating a world where everything costs a million dollars and all young people can earn is pennies. At any point in time they could’ve been like “this may not in my selfish interest, but it will ensure the future generations can have the same life as i do” and pushed for policies accordingly. But that didn’t happen.

by darth_avocado

2/3/2026 at 8:25:44 PM

Has any society ever behaved that way? It's already a push to get people to think of the middle/lower classes during the present.

I understand the desire to find an entity or group of people to blame, but they were acting in their own self interest at a peak time, they didn't know the party would be over soon, for many of them, it still isn't.

by dinobones

2/3/2026 at 8:24:18 PM

> And who do you think exactly contributed to the over financialization of everything? Every single thing, good or bad, is a direct result of the actions of the generation before.

Some elements of the generation before. It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few. There were some elite people with a plan, many more who bought the propaganda they were served, and a lot who had nothing to do with any of it.

Also, it's worth noting (to help build empathy) that you and me likely have been suckered by propaganda for things that the next generation will curse us for, but we just think we're being sensible and informed.

The least you could do is blame an ideological faction of that generation (e.g. neoliberals), rather than blaming the whole generation itself. Among many advantages, that names the problem in a way that can solve it.

by palmotea

2/3/2026 at 10:02:45 PM

> It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few.

The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to. Shifting the blame to the actions of the few is an easy way to absolve yourself of the blame. Who allows the few to take those actions? How did those few come into power to be able to take those actions? Once the actions were taken, why were they not corrected if the entire generation disagreed with them?

Maybe in the future the generations will blame my generation for a bunch of wrongs, even if I personally may not have contributed to those wrongs, I will still share the burden of not doing enough to prevent it.

by darth_avocado

2/3/2026 at 11:07:32 PM

> The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to.

That's an illusion. I think what you're really doing is putting unreasonable demands on the entire baby boomer generation, then blaming them for not succeeding at an impossible task. I mean, seriously, you really think, say, some boomer factory worker in Ohio is to blame for not foreseeing the effects of some 1980-era policy on 2026 or even 2006? They didn't have the benefit of the hindsight that we have.

It sounds like you're really holding tight onto blame, but what good does that do you? It solves no problems, and at best, alienates people from you.

by palmotea

2/3/2026 at 8:18:27 PM

You _can_ blame them for several high-impact things they willingly did or at least supported, e.g. benefiting greatly from public spending yet successively voting to restrict it later on; f*cking over the real estate market and squeezing younger generations with extreme rents/prices; refusing any kind of social reforms while it has been obvious for decades that current models don't scale; decoupling of productivity from wages; and last but not least racking up huge carbon debt that later generations will pay dearly for.

by dotdi

2/3/2026 at 8:10:32 PM

They didn’t passively exist during it. They implemented it. They are culpable.

by kridsdale1

2/3/2026 at 8:29:18 PM

There are 67 million baby boomers in the US. How can you rationally blame them all? Roughly 20% of the population.

Saying the "boomers ruined everything" is not sophisticated, we can't move forward from a blame game, we have to diagnose the actions and actors that implemented them, but of course this is much more challenging.

Ancedotally, I know plenty of poor boomers. Have you seen who works at a Dollar Tree lately?

The popular dialogue that boomer=rich and greedy, millennial=poor and exploited is not productive, it's a fabricated generational war that distracts us from the real issues.

by dinobones

2/3/2026 at 9:43:34 PM

My parents are poor boomers, but if they had to live as I do, they'd be rich boomers. They have no financial discipline and burned through cash like crazy. If they would have saved even a little bit in the 80s and 90s, they'd be in a much better situation.

by S_Bear

2/3/2026 at 7:25:06 PM

I don't have a source, but I've been hearing that this is just common among young people everywhere.

They blamed social media for Americans.

by sejje

2/3/2026 at 7:27:05 PM

I'd blame technology altogether. People are losing their purpose.

by nish__

2/3/2026 at 7:34:07 PM

I'd blame the ever decreasing ratio between salaries and the cost of living.

And the fact that salaries don't really grow for years now, while the productivity, and so the generated wealth, does.

by bojan

2/3/2026 at 8:20:54 PM

I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues.

I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.

by PassingClouds

2/4/2026 at 12:25:15 AM

I’ll be honest and say that while I agree, I’d be one of those who’d get significantly burned financially if this were to happen. Having made significant lifestyle cuts to eventually get our foot in the door and now dealing with one of us being laid off (100% due to the current administration), devaluing housing would essentially lock us into where we currently live for the rest of our lives and prevent us from moving to a lower cost of living area near retirement (which was part of our original financial planning). Combined with the fact that our generation is unlikely to see social security as a viable pillar of support (ex: retirement age requirements increasing), I want to support the idea but I have yet to see a solution that won’t burn the population of people like myself. To support this would be to offer ourselves up as sacrifices and that is something I don’t think I could ask of someone. If someone could crack that nut and have a “soft landing” for those who are going to get screwed, then I think there’s a fighting chance that we solve this before it all becomes untenable.

(Edit: To clarify, when I hear devaluing housing, I’m interpreting that as an enormous price decrease. The impact to us is that we wouldn’t be able to sell our house for anywhere near the cost we paid for it. We didn’t buy as it as an asset but we also didn’t plan for it to become a huge loss that could have instead gone into retirement savings.)

by hysan

2/3/2026 at 9:26:47 PM

The problem is most people won't take that attitude. For most homeowners, the home is the largest asset.

This is a Catch 22 for elected officials. We must reduce housing costs dramatically if we do so, we will devalue significant assets of a large number of active voters and political contributors.

I'd love to see some ideas on how to pull this off, because we need them.

by daotoad

2/3/2026 at 10:48:12 PM

There are a few things I wish we'd do in the US. We could not allow foreign investors to buy up properties in the US to use as short term rentals (airbnb) when they could instead be purchased by Americans and filled with families. We could also increase vacancy taxes to help encourage property owners to fill the millions of empty homes found all over the country. We could also decrease the wealth gap so that more Americans have enough money that they don't have to wait until they are 40 years old to buy their first starter house. (https://nypost.com/2025/11/05/real-estate/median-age-of-firs...)

by autoexec

2/3/2026 at 11:15:54 PM

The home is the largest asset, but the one you're living in. I personally agree with the other guy, I'd happily support a housing market crash, artificially induced if needed.

However, it's more nuanced. I can support risking that my house gets less worth than my mortgage, because I consider the probability of not being able to pay off my mortgage very low. I am guessing that people who feel less secure financially do see a house as a last-resort asset, even at the price of their children not being able to afford a home. And that's the root cause that should be fixed with policy I think.

by bojan

2/3/2026 at 7:43:53 PM

meaningfully, this is equivalent to the parent commenter. "technology"

I loathe the "pop critique" employment of the phrase, but this is definitionally late-stage capitalism.

obviously capitalism is named as such because it is founded upon the concept of (private) capital. capital serves to lower margins and increase profitability. it has been remarkably successful and has immensely raised QoL for virtually the planet's entire population. we are now reckoning with its inevitable consequences. manpower is unreliable. it gets sick. it has children. it has eccentricities. it is fundamentally unpredictable. Capital seeks efficiency and reliability. What percentage of the population is capable of building data centers? Of engineering massive scale LLMs?

What happens when Capital no longer needs labor?

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 8:03:05 PM

The answer is and always has been "paperclips."

without human influence or directive, capital ceases to be become anything meaningful beyond [insert data type] at which point, it spreads like a cancer, ie: universal paperclips

Capitalism is revered due to how it has significantly impacted the living standards of populations that participate in it. But increasing the living standards of populations was never the purpose of capitalism, it was a simply a side-effect.

by SimianSci

2/3/2026 at 8:11:29 PM

Indeed. It is a blind force of nature.

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 8:08:25 PM

It's got nothing to do with that. People that don't need it are hoarding wealth.

It's real estate value all the way down. Apartments getting tinier while getting more expensive, homes being out of reach or taking up an enormous amount of total pay in order to finance.

People who own aren't living off their own labor's fruits saved for the future but on the massively increased value they're selling something they didn't have to pay nearly as much for. (not talking about inflation but actual hours of labor)

You have middle aged people doing not much better than introductory jobs because the people who needed to retire haven't.

The CEO pay multiple is just ridiculous.

by colechristensen

2/3/2026 at 8:10:57 PM

I don't believe we disagree.

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 7:29:17 PM

> They blamed social media for Americans.

I think you meant "blamed Americans for social media" but at this point they both kinda fit

by ddellacosta

2/3/2026 at 7:34:35 PM

i interpreted it as "for the phenomenon noted in Americans, they blamed social media."

by swasheck

2/3/2026 at 7:42:09 PM

Among young people everywhere and everywhen? I would guess that young people were less satisfied with life than older folks in most every time period.

by bryanlarsen

2/3/2026 at 8:36:20 PM

Answering my own question: in the past life satisfaction studies were traditionally U-shaped; satisfaction was lowest at "mid-life crisis" age, and higher for the young and old.

by bryanlarsen

2/3/2026 at 8:29:59 PM

No, sorry -- I've heard the current crop of young people worldwide is reporting lower life satisfaction, high rates of mental health issues, etc

by sejje

2/3/2026 at 7:52:36 PM

Is there any period in history when the young people reported being as happy or happier than the older cohort?

by avemuri

2/3/2026 at 7:56:42 PM

Many? Look generations after wars and economic depressions.

by jmcgough

2/3/2026 at 7:59:00 PM

Really? I would expect people at risk of being drafted during a war being much less happy than older people not at risk.

by bryanlarsen

2/3/2026 at 8:04:04 PM

Why would you be worried about being drafted during a war AFTER the war?

by Ensorceled

2/3/2026 at 8:13:54 PM

Sorry, misread your original comment. But it seems to me that young people in the 50's and 60's (aka the golden age most Americans think of) where much more dissatisfied than older people -- the 60's were notorious for protests.

by bryanlarsen

2/3/2026 at 7:56:33 PM

Right when LSD hit the scene. But seriously boomers in the US and europe had it great because they knew what their parents and grandparents went through. Until the vietnam draft for americans I guess.

by asdff

2/3/2026 at 7:56:40 PM

[dead]

by gulfofamerica

2/3/2026 at 7:43:22 PM

Sweden is such an interesting country. Arguably peak gender equality, but also child assassins and bombs right now. I hope they can sort out their issues.

by qweiopqweiop

2/3/2026 at 7:54:20 PM

> but also child assassins and bombs right now

Yes, "interesting" is the right word. The government is talking about suspending cell phones for kids in connection to that. But honestly, what's really scary right now is how many kids and young adults seem to be "zombified" (for lack of a better word), and how bad this turns out later in the job market. Tomorrow I need to have a serious talk with my boss about how we should not hire a prospect because of total lack of in-person interactivity. Immigrants from war and poverty-stricken countries are over-represented in our "successful hires" pool because they still know how to speak.

by dsign

2/3/2026 at 7:58:23 PM

January 2026 was the first month since March 2018 with no one shot dead here in Sweden. I guess that is good, but one theory is that it is correlated with January also being the coldest month in decades, and low temperatures tend to calm things down.

by 1313ed01

2/3/2026 at 8:00:01 PM

Sorry but that’s just not true. You learn about what happens in Sweden because statistically it never happens.

On the other hand, the rest of the world never know about the latest bi-monthly school shooting in the US.

by pjerem

2/3/2026 at 8:02:09 PM

Sorry but it is true, almost entirely because of immigration. https://dragonflyintelligence.com/news/sweden-gang-bombings-...

Wishing it away doesn't make it any less true.

by weirdmantis69

2/3/2026 at 9:42:08 PM

That article says nothing of immigration though.

by MisterTea

2/3/2026 at 9:50:30 PM

Today i learned that Sweden is blaming immigrants for crimes committed by native born Swedes.

Sweden has always had a fairly high crime rate. Immigrants didn't make it worse, but blaming them just made an existing problem more visible.

by gamblor956

2/3/2026 at 8:26:29 PM

Chronic housing shortage, peak social competition, education and labor cratering in value, inability to find a job despite advanced degrees, above average salaries that don't pay the cost of living, "once in a lifetime crisis" after crisis, art(cinema, music, etc) in decline, politically deadlocked society... The list is long.

I always find it funny to read the statistics about how life has never been easier when society is in clear disarray and the opportunities that existed just a few decades ago simply evaporated.

by lp4v4n

2/3/2026 at 7:22:31 PM

As a former young adult, I can attest to this self-loathing discontentment.

by madhacker

2/3/2026 at 7:34:33 PM

…than in Norway, than old adults, that 20 years ago?

by stared

2/3/2026 at 8:30:07 PM

Scratch the surface a little bit and it’s always comes down to housing/living costs.

More than enough work out there actually pays well in isolation to live a decent full life, it’s just relatively local housing costs it probably sucks.

And not just for young people. We’re fully in an environment where how good and flexible your life is is highly dependent on when you bought a home, or if you own a home.

by cal_dent

2/3/2026 at 7:29:39 PM

hmm what a mystery. I wonder why

by ramuel

2/3/2026 at 7:48:51 PM

I don't know much about Sweden - can you tell me?

by IncreasePosts

2/3/2026 at 7:53:59 PM

immigration edit: I'm getting downvoted, but it is obviously what the parent meant.

by Squarex

2/3/2026 at 8:00:15 PM

correcto. Although to be fair that's not exclusively what I was implying.

by ramuel

2/3/2026 at 8:02:51 PM

10000% true.

by weirdmantis69

2/3/2026 at 7:25:02 PM

Clickbait/editorializing in submission title. Also: Paper doesn't robustly support this statement.

The actual title of the paper: "Flourishing in Sweden: Great overall — but not for all"

But the poster clearly knows what kind of title makes a post fly.

by lysace

2/3/2026 at 7:39:53 PM

Page 21, 4.6 Conclusions explains it quite clearly:

> ... our findings highlight notable disparities—particularly among young adults—that underscore the need for more targeted efforts to promote flourishing across all segments of Swedish society.

by MisterTea

2/3/2026 at 7:41:05 PM

Does it really?

by lysace

2/3/2026 at 8:22:32 PM

This was posted to Reddit's r/science five hours or so before the submission here, under roughly the same title but longer since Reddit allows longer titles. I'm sure they just saw it made r/all over there and figured copying it over more or less verbatim would achieve the same engagement as everyone plays with their favorite bugaboos about old people and maybe 3 people out of 100 wonder if the effect is consistent that young people are just generally less happy than older people regardless of the specific time at which you ask.

by nonameiguess

2/3/2026 at 8:33:01 PM

So it's a litmus test of HN. Better than Reddit or not?

by lysace

2/3/2026 at 7:33:44 PM

This is one of those topics where everyone is going to insert their personal bête noire as the cause. "Tech, the economy, culture, immigrants, loss of religion, corruption, polarization, capitalism, socialism!". I actually really like threads like this, since it's a good way to get a pulse on what the different discontentment topics are at any given time.

by seneca

2/3/2026 at 7:45:36 PM

All of the boogeymen you mentioned are strands of a singular issue, a singular phenomenon.

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 8:12:58 PM

losing the gold standard 1971?

by nickez

2/3/2026 at 8:27:17 PM

when the ruling principles are growth, consumption, and profit, the ability to invent money tends to be quite appealing.

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 8:13:49 PM

What is that singular phenomenon? What can result in blaming both capitalism and socialism, for example?

by cosmic_quanta

2/3/2026 at 8:27:57 PM

Displacing God as the center of life.

by enemyz0r

2/3/2026 at 8:36:32 PM

Man, what does that say about the human race if we're only able to be happy under the dubious eye of a supranatural daddy?

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 9:16:20 PM

I think it says we need more time in the evolutionary oven. With how fast tech and education have accelerated we're running Ubuntu 24 on the Enigma machine.

by akramachamarei

2/3/2026 at 9:18:20 PM

Yeah, that seems to be a better conclusion - that we're not built with enough sophistication to deal with everything we're currently dealing with. But I think that's also due to the fact that the things we're dealing with are intentionally built to take advantage of our weaknesses. You can't out evolve technology.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 8:58:03 PM

What if it's true that this daddy exists?

by leflambeur

2/3/2026 at 9:05:28 PM

Does it matter? Based upon the poster I responded to, it appears to be only the belief that's important, not the being.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 9:19:12 PM

If such being does exist, then how could it possibly not matter? If there's an architect and we are the architect's creation, then how could our belief alone be the important thing?

by leflambeur

2/3/2026 at 9:24:56 PM

That's immaterial to the discussion. The comment I replied to simply stated: "Displacing God as the center of life." They aren't arguing that god matters, it's our displacement of them.

So, on the existence of god, we have two possiblities: God does exist, god doesn't exist.

1. If god doesn't exist, then we're unhappy because we're displacing a false god as the center of life.

2. If god does exist, then we're unhappy because we're displacing a real god as the center of life.

In that discussion, god's existence in fact doesn't matter, it leads to the same outcome.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 9:30:57 PM

That is very much not immaterial.

If God does exist and is our creator, then we're designed to recognize him (at least to strive to, or have some innate need to); failing to do so or radically abdicating from this need would lead to disaster.

In other words, in the God-exists scenario, we are not merely observers of a phenomenon who can be detached from it.

by leflambeur

2/3/2026 at 9:40:35 PM

But that framing only really works if we assume a Abrahamic world view.

Other cultures don't and didn't relate to their deities in the same way. Do we then have to assume they all suffered lower life satisfaction than a 11th century German peasant because of their detachment from a singular god the creator? Why didn't they strive for the relationship you're describing?

Trying to put God with a capital G at the center of our lives as some innate need doesn't make sense from a historical context.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 9:57:44 PM

That’s not what we’d have to assume.

I don’t know about religions in the general sense, and you’re right to point out that I very much have the “Abrahamic world view”, though my case is much much more specific than that but that’s not relevant here.

What we might more safely assume is that the Creator is revealed through history and a group to whom it he’s not revealed might pursue him more ignorantly (I appreciate the language might sound offensive or condescending but that’s not the intention) but in that pursuit they’re still better off than someone who willfully rejects him.

This I believe is relevant to the post, as these societies have not gone from one god to another, but to none.

by leflambeur

2/3/2026 at 10:06:31 PM

That's a lot of assumptions, and really only make sense if you're trying to put your own beliefs as the "correct" choice. Somehow, all these other cultures got it wrong, but the ones who believe one single god, they got it right.

> This I believe is relevant to the post, as these societies have not gone from one god to another, but to none.

I don't know what you mean by this. Particular God's importance rose and fell out of fashion in ancient societies.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 8:59:12 PM

[flagged]

by daseiner1

2/3/2026 at 9:08:13 PM

"Midwit"? Rude.

by SketchySeaBeast

2/3/2026 at 8:24:51 PM

> In fact, previous studies suggest that older adults tend to prioritize positive over negative information

So just avoiding the truth does the trick

by terespuwash