Christmas is a very happy time. The giving and receiving of gifts, celebrations of and reflections on the birth of Jesus Christ, and the general joy of the season bring great happiness to billions of people. But that joy isn’t shared so much by younger Americans.
Nearly 80 million people in the United States are between the ages of 18 and 35. That’s about 25% of the population and they’re not very happy. It’s not the biggest slice of the demographic pie but they do represent the generation that will be running things over the next couple of decades, so it matters.
We know they’re not very happy because University of Utah Professor Nicholas H. Wolfinger researched the attitudes of this age group. According to his December 12 report, the number of 18-35 year olds who report being “very happy” is down a full third since 1990.
Personal happiness waxes and wanes all the time so it’s not surprising that the same shift would happen within entire age groups. Much has happened since 1990 so it’s impossible to attribute this change to any one thing. But Professor Wolfinger did more than ask young people about their happiness. He collected additional data which, when considered in its totality, reveals trends that may contribute to this decline.
Between 1990 and 2023, the number of people saying they are “very happy” dropped by 33%. During the same period of time, the following other things happened:
- The number of people not working rose 39%.
- The number of people not from a two-parent home rose 33%.
- The number of people with college and post-graduate degrees rose 31%.
- The number of people who are not married rose 31%.
- The number of people who are childless rose 18%.
- The number of people not attending church rose 13%.
This narrative paints an intriguing landscape of American society. More young people today are college educated, unemployed, unmarried, childless, from single-parent homes and eschewing corporate worship. Coincidentally, there’s less happiness. That is very sad, both for these people as individuals and for society at large.
It might be a stretch to claim that having a job, being married with kids, growing up in a nuclear family, attending church and not marinating in the cultural swill of campus life will lead to greater happiness. But we absolutely know that young people have been told with increasing frequency that these circumstances and behaviors are against their best interests.
Millions of people have been led to question the “social good” of marriage as an institution. We’re told to consider whether having children will wreck the planet and how having kids will result in “ consigning them to an apocalyptic future in a burning, flooding hellscape.” Having a job is for losers, an actual headline. Medical professionals extol the advantages of single-parent households while others tell us that attending church makes no sense. Pretty much everybody talks about how a college education is “critical” to success, and the World Economic Forum confidently declares, “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
Herein lies the rub. Many young people believe all of this and conduct themselves accordingly, yet they’re not very happy. This decades-long bombardment of young people with anti-family, anti-religion and anti-personal responsibility messages is working, and the primary casualties are the people at whom it is directed.
This is not happening by accident. Authoritarians have known for more than a century that it’s easier to subjugate a population when they are removed from allegiances higher than the government. That includes the family, the church, even their innate nature to strive. Americans under the age of 35 have been inundated by cultural and political messaging that paves the road to serfdom and the net net is that many more of them are not very happy.
When people are not very happy, they’re more susceptible to despair, envy, and rage. We’ve all seen this phenomenon, across cultures and among individuals in our lives, some of whom are literally addicted to unhappiness. It’s tragic to watch and we’re often helpless to correct the situation. But extolling the values and virtues of God, family and country is not just smart, it’s necessary. We might sometimes feel like a single voice opposite an army of militants armed with bullhorns, but that only illustrates the importance of doing so.
The popular culture suggests that I shouldn’t be very happy. I’m a high school graduate with a wife and kid, work long hours at my job, go to church and thank God every day for my mom and dad. But Prof. Wolfinger’s study on happiness did not include the response, “exceedingly happy,” so I’ll have to settle for being merely very happy. That is my wish for everyone I know, and those I don’t, this Christmas.
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