Young people are unhappier than ever before.

Around the world, there has been a decline in wellbeing among young people and that decline is so profound that historical patterns of ill-being have now disappeared. The disturbing facts come from Dartmouth University Professor David Blanchflower’s working paper with Alex Bryson and Xiaowei Xu ‘The declining mental health of the young and the global disappearance of the hump shape in age in unhappiness.’ The NBER Working Paper was the primary source of Blanchflower’s 2024 Morley Gunderson Lecture in Industrial Relations and Labour Economics delivered at Innis College’s Town Hall.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Economics, Woodsworth College, and the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources to recognize the interconnections between the three University of Toronto departments, the lecture is named for Professor Emeritus Morley Gunderson in honour of his on-going contributions to Canadian labour economics and industrial relations over the past five decades. [Read more…]