Very interesting article, and I can't help but compare with Canada.

Canada has fallen from 5th in 2015 to 25th in 2025 on that same World Happiness Report, but if you break it down by age demographics, over 60 are still in the top 10, and under 25's are 71st. That is the largest demographic gap of every developed country. During that time, Canada's economy has been propped up by debt, high levels of immigration leading to cheap foreign workers, and the housing market, all of which benefit the older demographics and sacrifice the wellbeing and future of younger generations.

I agree strongly with the author that inflation pays a massive role. Canada has seen even worse inflation than the USA, especially with housing and food prices. The youth unemployment rate is 14%. Canada is different from the states it appears, where the rise in unhappiness is mostly coming from the youth whereas in the States it seems to be a more general phenomenon. It's interesting how split Canada is on age demographics.

Interestingly enough, the author points to Quebec as an outlier. While they point to the language spoken as a differentiator, I think it's more likely that Quebec is simply shielded from some of the economic factors facing the rest of Canada since they hold massively disproportionate political power over the rest of Canada and receive a ton of extra federal funding from other provinces.

I've been living in Quebec a long time, and the language thing is far more profound than most outside appreciate. It really does function as a de facto barrier for anything they want to use it for, and fairly effectively. In that sense living here can be a bit like being in a time warp.

One factor is that there are just enough smart monolingual francophones that they cannot really effectively leave, which means that the brain drain effect, while present, is nothing like as extreme as in the rest of Canada.

Boomers have ridden the wave of post-WWII success and now they're cashing in. Young people can't afford housing, sure, but even wealthier young people are affected by the spiritual rot beneath it.

The future used to look bright, and now it doesn't. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, employed, unemployed, engaged in politics, or politically apathetic -- you can still feel it.