Professor Leonardo Bechetti
Professor of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata

The division of the cake is too much in favor of the elders

Professor Nick Powdthavee
Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Teenagers today have readily accessible social comparison points via social media in their pocket, which makes it is hard to be satisfied with their current situation. They are also likely to be poorer than their parents, whilst facing much fiercer competition for work, for partnership, for good relationships than ever before.

Professor Stephen Wu
Professor of Economics, Hamilton College

The number of young people suffering from poor mental health has been increasing over the last decade, and with regards to very recent times during the pandemic, the levels of stress, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are at historically high levels.

Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC

We do not have enough evidence (see my answer 2) and the few evidence we have (see below) does not seem to indicate that We know that youth wellbeing depends on things some of which have deteriorated: (i) Young people will increasingly be living more moments of uncertainty (eco-anxity, affected by covid,...) and this will generate stress, as long as they do not quickly adapt to it; (ii) Life is and will be much more uncertain, jobs are not forever anymore, and young people will get stressed from it, unless they adapt to it; (iii) Social media exposure does not seem to matter much (REF), contrary to intuition, but this might be due to the difference between active and passive social media. Children using social media actively do not need to be unhappier; and (iv) Increasing school pressure might negatively affect their happiness. But we also know that children's wellbeing depends on other things for which we have no evidence that have deteriorated, but some seem to have improved: (i) Social connectedness; and also a good relationship with their parents and close family is very important for their wellbeing; (ii) Healthy habits, including eating, physical exercise, and sleeping well, will lead to happy teens; (iii) Health is crucial; (iv) Feeling in a safe environment; and (v) Bullying, also online

Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

New Zealand evidence from the 6-yearly "Youth 2000 surveys" show a very marked drop in secondary school students' wellbeing since 2000, and especially over the 6 years to 2018. This is across all demographic groups (male/female, ethnicity, deprivation deciles, etc). It is also apparent for multiple measures of wellbeing and ill-being. Similar drops have been observed in other surveys of this age group in other developed countries, although I have yet to see comprehensive data across a wide range of developed countries.

Professor Bruno Frey
Visiting Professor of Economics and Wellbeing, University of Basel

I do not have any empirical evidence to make a statement

Professor Mark Wooden
Professorial Research Fellow and Director of the HILDA Survey Project, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne

"This is a question that is easily answered with reference to existing data, though findings may differ across countries, and with how wellbeing is defined and measured. I can only answer with any confidence for Australia, using data from the HILDA Survey.

If we use a measure of cognitive well-being, overall life satisfaction, we find teenagers (aged 15-19) are more satisfied than any other age group, and the level of satisfaction (scored on a 0-10 scale) has actually increased slightly since the panel started, and is virtually unchanged since 2010 (with 2018 being the most recent year for which data are available; 2019 data will be available in December).

If we use measures of affective well-being, such as the 5-item mental health subscale of the SF36, however, we reach a different conclusion. On this measure, teenage wellbeing has declined by 8% since 2019, which compares with a decline of just over 2% in the total population.

It is thus difficult to reach a definitive conclusion about recent trends in teenage well-being in Australia; it all depends on the outcome measure used."

Professor Rainer Winkelmann
Professor of Economics, University of Zurich

There seems to be quite a bit of conflicting evidence on this. For instance, in the German Socio-Economic Panel, the average life-satisfaction of those aged 17-19 has increased steadily between 2006 and 2018, from around 7.2 to around 7.7, based on 600 to 1000 observations for each year. The change is statistically significant.

Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino

"I answer ‘Agree’ because various evidences point in the same direction.
Many indices of teenagers’ mental health show a decline in the US, and this decline lasts for some decades (e.g. Twenge, 2010, 2015). The suicide rate of US adolescents has begun to soar in 2007 (Ruch et al. 2019). Teenage students of almost all the developed countries substantially reduced their sense of belonging to the school community (measured in various ways) from 2003 to 2016, this index being correlated with life satisfaction and academic achievement (OECD 2017).
However, scarce data for developed countries other than the US, and contradictory evidence for the wellbeing index proper prevent me from responding ‘Completely agree’. For example, Twenge et al. (2016) have found an increasing trend of happiness and satisfaction in different domains for US teenagers over the period 1990-2014. More research on the reliability of subjective response by teenagers would be needed.

OECD (2017) PISA 2015 Results. Studentts’ Well-being. Vol. III. OECD Publishing: Paris.
Ruch, D.A., Sheftall, A.H., Schlagbaum, P., Rausch, J., et al. 2019. Trends in suicide among youth aged 10 to 19 years in the US, 1975 to 2016. JAMA Network Open, (5):e193886.
Twenge, J.M. 2015. Time period and birth cohort differences in depressive symptoms in the U.S., 1982-2013. Social Indicators Research, 121:437-454.
Twenge, J.M., Gentile, B., DeWall, C.N., Ma, D.S., et al. 2010A. Birth cohort increases in psychopathology among young Americans, 1938–2007. Clinical Psychology Review 30:145–54.
Twenge, J.M., Sherman, R.A., Lyubomirsly, S. (2016) More happiness for young people and less for mature adults. Social Psychological and Personality Science 7:131-41."

Professor Martin Binder
Professor of Socio-Economics at Bundeswehr University Munich

Yes, there is evidence that youth well-being has decreased in the past and the World Happiness Report 2015 contains a chapter on this decrease.

Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics

It is an established, empirical fact that in many developed countries teenager wellbeing has, on average, reduced over the last decade. This is particularly driven by female teenagers (not so much male teenagers). There are various factors discussed in the literature for why this is the case. Most often, these include social media use and the fact that adolescent girls are more prone to compare themselves with each other via social media accounts. Another factor may be an increase in competing pressures and demands from different societal roles. This blends with the observation that average female wellbeing has stagnated over the past decades despite the fact that there are now many more opportunities available for women than in the past.

Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Associate Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

"Recent research has shown that rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide attempts have increased substantially among U.S. adolescents between 2011 and 2018 ((Twenge, 2020). In addition, nationally representative yearly surveys of US teenagers between 1991 and 2016 has shown important reductions in
psychological well-being (indexed as self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness), which suddenly decreased after 2012 (Twenge, Martin, & Campbell, 2018). A WHO report complemented previous information by showing that prevalence of several health complaints among a multiplicity of developed nations has increased since 2014. Moreover, a reduction in mental well-being is observed with increasing age. Importantly, mental health and life satisfaction is higher among male teenagers and adolescents from richer families, raising the issue of how inequality impact the mentioned trends (WHO, 2020).

Twenge, J. M. (2020). Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked to the technological environment. Current opinion in psychology, 32, 89-94.

Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765.

WHO (2020). Spotlight on adolescent health and well-being. Findings from the 2017/2018 health behavior in school-aged children (HSBC) survey in Europe and Canada International report. Retrieved from https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/442959/Spotlight-on-adolescent-health-and-well-being-HBSC-survey-summary-eng.pdf

Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

"While I do not have access to life satisfaction data from all countries, I am told by Rainer Winkelmann (Uni of Zurich) that: "" life satisfaction among 17-19 year olds in Germany (weighted but otherwise unadjusted means). According to this source & starting in 2007, there has been a rather steady increase in reported subjective wellbeing."" Rainer provides a nice graph to the WWP showing this in detail. So, not wanting to be outdone I replicated Rainer's work using the Australian HILDA panel.
If one looks at all ages by year in the panel, females are happier. Looking at 15 to 19 year olds, males are happier by 0.09 to 0.26 life satisfaction units. There are strong birth cohort effects, with females born in 1995 happier than males born in the same year, but across all other 1983-2003 birth cohorts males are happier. What is most interesting in Australians is that life satisfaction for all birth cohorts, of 15 to 19 year olds, has increased between the 1983 and 2003 birth cohorts by: 0.497 for all; 0.076 for females and; a very large 0.967 for males (this number looks very big, one wonders why???). Like Rainer, I email the graphics to Arthur Grimes.

Professor Leonardo Bechetti
Professor of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata

We have evidence of it especially in Italy based on labor market and subjective wellbeing data

Professor Nick Powdthavee
Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

There's growing evidence that the incidence of mental health problems (and suicide rates) among teenagers has been increasing in many developed countries. For example, see Bor, W., Dean, A. J., Najman, J., & Hayatbakhsh, R. (2014). Are child and adolescent mental health problems increasing in the 21st century? A systematic review. Australian & New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 48(7), 606-616.

Professor Stephen Wu
Professor of Economics, Hamilton College

I think there are many compelling studies showing that rates of depression and anxiety among youth are impacted by: social media usage, increased social isolation, decreased rates of physical activity, changes in dietary habits, and high pressure to succeed in an increasingly competitive society.

Professor Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Professor of Economics, IAE-CSIC

Why: There are few statistics with children (and even less longitudinal studies examining the mental health of the youth), and the results seem contradictory. (1) PISA: 15 year old seem to report reasonable satisfaction levels. Boys at 15 seem happier than girls. (2) A study in the UK seems to show that teens' satisfaction is decreasing over time, but this decrease seems to be driven by older children (13 to 15). Age differences are larger than gender differences. Nevertheless, the majority of children and young people are relatively happy with their live (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/906693/State_of_the_Nation_2019_young_people_children_wellbeing.pdf). The study emphasizes the importance to look at inequalities rather than average. For example, gender differences depend on the age, although boys tend to be happier, differences decrease with age, as girls get mental health problems earlier than boys. Older children are less satisfied, and social background is also relevant.

Professor Arthur Grimes
Chair of Wellbeing and Public Policy, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

Multiple hypotheses have been forwarded as to why the drop in teenage wellbeing is occurring. These include the influence of social media, less exercise due to increased reliance on digital communications, reduced prospects of finding secure employment when finished education, climate change and other environmental concerns. Some of these concerns may be magnified relative to an objective assessment through media reporting (and by educators) but it is the perceptions that count in terms of affecting teenagers' wellbeing. It is extremely difficult to distinguish between the different hypotheses and careful evaluation of cross-country surveys across time is required to try and disentangle which reasons are most relevant, possibly for different groups within and between countries.

Professor Bruno Frey
Visiting Professor of Economics and Wellbeing, University of Basel

same as for question 1

Professor Mark Wooden
Professorial Research Fellow and Director of the HILDA Survey Project, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne

"This question is obviously prefaced on the assumption that teenage well-being is declining, and as noted in the answer to my previous question, self-reported life satisfaction among Australian teenagers has not changed at all. So difficult to know how to respond to that question.

As a labour economist, my initial thinking was that the decline in reported mental health, may have something to do with job security, with indicators from the HILDA Survey indicating that after rising in the 2000s, job security began to fall following the Global Financial Crisis. However, it is unclear to me why this would not also affect cognitive evaluations of life.

Perhaps a more plausible is explanation is the rising ""demands"" placed on young people by social media. This might have added to day-to-day anxiety and worries without affecting broader evaluations of life. But this is mere speculation.

Professor Rainer Winkelmann
Professor of Economics, University of Zurich

Since I'm not sure about the first statement, I cannot offer a good answer here. A recent AER paper by Allcott et al. (2020) showed quite convincingly, using a randomized experiment, that deactivating Facebook increased subjective wellbeing. Other similar studies exist. So perhaps, social media have a role to play. But there are many factors in the life of young people, some of them having positive and some negative effects, so it is unclear overall (and to be disputed) whether there is an increase or decrease in wellbeing.

Professor Maurizio Pugno
Full Professor of Economics, University of Cassino

"We have evidence on which to build a tentative explanation only.
It is clear that the job conditions for teenagers have worsened since the Great Recession, and even worse conditions are expected due to the current pandemic. This fact, together with high inequality and low social mobility, has severely damaged adolescents in their ability to think about their future, and hence in being satisfied with themselves.
Their intensive use of digital-screen devices may work as a present-focused compensation. But a lot of evidence shows that an intensive use of such devices harms wellbeing, through addiction and social detachment (Hasebrink et al. 2009; Przybylski and Weinstein 2017). This evidence is not conclusive, but it could be stronger if the compensating role of this behaviour was examined.

Hasebrink, U., Livingstone, S., Haddon, L. and Ólafsson, K.(2009) Comparing children’s online opportunities and risks across Europe: Cross-national comparisons for EU Kids Online. LSE, London: EU Kids Online
Przybylski, A.K., Weinstein, N. (2017) A large-scale test of the goldilocks hypothesis. Psychological Science 28:2014-15.
"

Professor Martin Binder
Professor of Socio-Economics at Bundeswehr University Munich

There are multiple causes, but a big one is youth mental health. As mental health is a big determinant of well-being, increases in depression, anxiety and stress of teenagers are likely to be at the root of their decreased well-being. In addition, I think that also the use of social media in the last decade can be identified as a cause for decreased well-being, where cyber-bullying and the polarization of online discourse will do their part in decreasing well-being. Spending more and more time online and comparing one's own life with a carefully-curated and overblown depiction of one's peer group's lives is apt to decrease one's mental health and well-being.

Professor Christian Krekel
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics

No, not really: first of all, teenager wellbeing has not featured high on the research or policy agenda, at least not as much as it should have. For example, we know very little about wellbeing in schools, and do not systematically collect data thereon. Second, we only have correlative evidence, not "clear" (i.e. causal) evidence, which is difficult to obtain because trends in teenager wellbeing coincide with many other, simultaneous trends over long periods of time (for example, social media usage, changes in school curricula, cyberbullying, and so o). It is thus difficult to single out a dominant, causal factor.

Professor Wenceslao Unanue
Associate Professor, Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

"Research has found important explanations for the adolescent´s decrease in well-being and mental health during the last decade. For example, Twenge (2020) showed that well-being problems are associated with depression, heavy use of technology, and declines in face-to-face social interaction. Twenge et al. (2018) also found that higher time spend on screens (e.g. Internet, gambling, smartphones, etc.) and lower time on social relationships, sports and community involvement has led to lower psychological well-being. Indeed, teenagers “spending a small amount of time on electronic communication were the happiest” (p. 765). Additionally, the WHO showed that among the more common well-being problems are nervousness, irritability and sleep difficulties. Despite previous key findings, I think we are far for having a “clear evidence” on why the wellbeing of teenagers is dropping. Science should always evolve. We still need more research for improving adolescent’s happiness and quality of life.

WHO (2020). Spotlight on adolescent health and well-being. Findings from the 2017/2018 health behavior in school-aged children (HSBC) survey in Europe and Canada International report. Retrieved from https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/442959/Spotlight-on-adolescent-health-and-well-being-HBSC-survey-summary-eng.pdf

Twenge, J. M. (2020). Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked to the technological environment. Current opinion in psychology, 32, 89-94.

Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765.

Doctor Tony Beatton
Visiting Fellow, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

See my comments to the previous question. We need a macro analyses of this question across more countries. Perhaps the better question is why females become happier after the teenage years.