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Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

internationaljournalofwellbeing.org

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Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#81

Post by autoexec »

daotoad wrote: post #72
PassingClouds wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues. I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.

The problem is most people won't take that attitude. For most homeowners, the home is the largest asset. This is a Catch 22 for elected officials. We must reduce housing costs dramatically if we do so, we will devalue significant assets of a large number of active voters and political contributors. I'd love to see some ideas on how to pull this off, because we need them.

There are a few things I wish we'd do in the US. We could not allow foreign investors to buy up properties in the US to use as short term rentals (airbnb) when they could instead be purchased by Americans and filled with families. We could also increase vacancy taxes to help encourage property owners to fill the millions of empty homes found all over the country. We could also decrease the wealth gap so that more Americans have enough money that they don't have to wait until they are 40 years old to buy their first starter house. (https://nypost.com/2025/11/05/real-estate/median-age-of-firs...)

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#82

Post by matusp »

10xDev wrote: post #23

> 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.

> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves.

Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even 20 or 40 years ago.

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#83

Post by palmotea »

darth_avocado wrote: post #79
palmotea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And who do you think exactly contributed to the over financialization of everything? Every single thing, good or bad, is a direct result of the actions of the generation before. Some elements of the generation before. It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few. There were some elite people with a plan, many more who bought the propaganda they were served, and a lot who had…

> It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few. The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to. Shifting the blame to the actions of the few is an easy way to absolve yourself of the blame. Who allows the few to take those actions? How did those few come into power to be able to take those actions? Once the actions were taken, w…

> The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to.

That's an illusion. I think what you're really doing is putting unreasonable demands on the entire baby boomer generation, then blaming them for not succeeding at an impossible task. I mean, seriously, you really think, say, some boomer factory worker in Ohio is to blame for not foreseeing the effects of some 1980-era policy on 2026 or even 2006? They didn't have the benefit of the hindsight that we have.

It sounds like you're really holding tight onto blame, but what good does that do you? It solves no problems, and at best, alienates people from you.

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#84

Post by cayleyh »

matusp wrote: post #82
10xDev wrote: post #23

> 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.

> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves. Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even…

I too feel this is a huge part of it, coupled with the fact that "basics" of last generation (a home you own, a stable job that doesn't overwork you on evenings and weekends, affordable options to have a family) are also being priced out of many peoples lives. You feel like you're not matching what your parents and cultural artifacts tell you you should be achieving at your age, and at the same time you're flooded with influencers on ski trips to Japan or snorkelling in Jamaica every other weekend, and it's a perfect recipe for feeling bad about your life no matter how well off you're doing compared to yesterdays median statistic.

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#85

Post by bojan »

daotoad wrote: post #72
PassingClouds wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues. I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.

The problem is most people won't take that attitude. For most homeowners, the home is the largest asset. This is a Catch 22 for elected officials. We must reduce housing costs dramatically if we do so, we will devalue significant assets of a large number of active voters and political contributors. I'd love to see some ideas on how to pull this off, because we need them.

The home is the largest asset, but the one you're living in. I personally agree with the other guy, I'd happily support a housing market crash, artificially induced if needed.

However, it's more nuanced. I can support risking that my house gets less worth than my mortgage, because I consider the probability of not being able to pay off my mortgage very low. I am guessing that people who feel less secure financially do see a house as a last-resort asset, even at the price of their children not being able to afford a home. And that's the root cause that should be fixed with policy I think.

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#86

Post by hysan »

PassingClouds wrote: post #49
bojan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'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.

I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues. I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.

I’ll be honest and say that while I agree, I’d be one of those who’d get significantly burned financially if this were to happen. Having made significant lifestyle cuts to eventually get our foot in the door and now dealing with one of us being laid off (100% due to the current administration), devaluing housing would essentially lock us into where we currently live for the rest of our lives and prevent us from moving to a lower cost of living area near retirement (which was part of our original financial planning). Combined with the fact that our generation is unlikely to see social security as a viable pillar of support (ex: retirement age requirements increasing), I want to support the idea but I have yet to see a solution that won’t burn the population of people like myself. To support this would be to offer ourselves up as sacrifices and that is something I don’t think I could ask of someone. If someone could crack that nut and have a “soft landing” for those who are going to get screwed, then I think there’s a fighting chance that we solve this before it all becomes untenable.

(Edit: To clarify, when I hear devaluing housing, I’m interpreting that as an enormous price decrease. The impact to us is that we wouldn’t be able to sell our house for anywhere near the cost we paid for it. We didn’t buy as it as an asset but we also didn’t plan for it to become a huge loss that could have instead gone into retirement savings.)

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#88

Post by Markoff »

ramuel wrote: post #7

hmm what a mystery. I wonder why

pretty 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/

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#89

Post by [deleted] »

matusp wrote: post #82
10xDev wrote: post #23

> 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.

> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves. Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even…

[deleted]

Re: Young adults report lower life satisfaction in Sweden

#90

Post by AlecSchueler »

matusp wrote: post #82
10xDev wrote: post #23

> 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.

> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves. Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even…

> I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less.

They could also afford to buy houses on minimum wage salaries.

I have a much higher salary than my parents, and I'm theory I can get more things from further afar, but I still live in a much more precarious situation.

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