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Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden
- madhacker 8mo agoAs a former young adult, I can attest to this self-loathing discontentment.
- lysace 8mo agoClickbait/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.
- MisterTea 8mo agoPage 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.
- lysace 8mo agoDoes it really?
- nonameiguess 8mo agoThis 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.
- lysace 8mo agoSo it's a litmus test of HN. Better than Reddit or not?
- sejje 8mo agoI 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.
- nish__ 8mo agoI'd blame technology altogether. People are losing their purpose.
- bojan 8mo agoI'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.
- daseiner1 8mo agomeaningfully, 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?
- SimianSci 8mo agoThe 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.
- ramuel 8mo agohmm what a mystery. I wonder why
- IncreasePosts 8mo agoI don't know much about Sweden - can you tell me?
- Squarex 8mo agoimmigration edit: I'm getting downvoted, but it is obviously what the parent meant.
- ramuel 8mo agocorrecto. Although to be fair that's not exclusively what I was implying.
- weirdmantis69 8mo ago10000% true.
- Batman8675309 8mo agoA theory is that it just might have something to do with the shootings and bombings. Just a thought.
- Markoff 8mo agopretty sure young adults are reporting lower life satisfaction across whole Europe considering toxic (social) media, youth unemployment and high cost of living (especially housing) but yeah, it would be great to see comparison with country which has much less immigrants compared to Sweden like Finland (or Poland), Finland seems like great comparison also for people unfamiliar with situation in Sweden, this movie is great to illustrate what's happening there - Play (2011) and situation in the last 15 years got only worse than it already was when they shot the movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1376717/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1376717/
- seneca 8mo agoThis 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.
- daseiner1 8mo agoAll of the boogeymen you mentioned are strands of a singular issue, a singular phenomenon.
- nickez 8mo agolosing the gold standard 1971?
- daseiner1 8mo agowhen the ruling principles are growth, consumption, and profit, the ability to invent money tends to be quite appealing.
- cosmic_quanta 8mo agoWhat is that singular phenomenon? What can result in blaming both capitalism and socialism, for example?
- enemyz0r 8mo agoDisplacing God as the center of life.
- SketchySeaBeast 8mo agoMan, what does that say about the human race if we're only able to be happy under the dubious eye of a supranatural daddy?
- stared 8mo ago…than in Norway, than old adults, that 20 years ago?
- qweiopqweiop 8mo agoSweden 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.
- dsign 8mo ago> 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.
- 1313ed01 8mo agoJanuary 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.
- pjerem 8mo agoSorry 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.
- weirdmantis69 8mo agoSorry but it is true, almost entirely because of immigration. https://dragonflyintelligence.com/news/sweden-gang-bombings-and-shootings-increasing/ https://dragonflyintelligence.com/news/sweden-gang-bombings-... Wishing it away doesn't make it any less true.
- MisterTea 8mo ago
- 10xDev 8mo ago> 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.
- polishdude20 8mo agoIt'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.
- trgn 8mo agosomewhat 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.
- marcosdumay 8mo agoMost 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.
- trgn 8mo agothe 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.
- terespuwash 8mo ago> In fact, previous studies suggest that older adults tend to prioritize positive over negative information So just avoiding the truth does the trick
- lp4v4n 8mo agoChronic 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.
- cal_dent 8mo agoScratch 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.