2nd Unhappiest place to live. UK

This thread is so fascinating.

People here in the UK have been trained to equate happiness with having lots of money and stuff. It's very individualist and it makes people jealous, envious and suspicious of one another.

Actually, this study is showing that you can be wealthy and well serviced, however that literally doesn't buy happiness.

People who live in literal war zones may not have money, stuff and services, but perhaps strangely feel happier because they are grateful for the big things - each other, their community and their lives.

Actually I put this list together about a month ago because husband is depressed and I was trying to work out why. It's my list, some of it might be wrong, but sums it up I think.

What a load of tosh, I live in one of the 'Happy' countries and I know plenty of people who are very very unhappy, to a point of either leaving (if they can) or are in such dire straights they are in a spiral of depression for what the counties been through and the mess its still in.

So much sense on this thread!

Oh Iook here's one now. I omitted many things from my list. There are no racial categories on there at all are there? I wonder why you mention it (actually I don't wonder and I'm really not interested in your thoughts on the matter).

You omit white people from your hate list. Why's that?

Lies. Damned Lies, Statistics.

Give me the numbers, tell me what you want to prove and I'll 'prove' it!

Our current political landscape depends on hating everybody who isn't yourself. Immigrants, benefits claimants, Europeans, students, the unemployed, nuisance homeless people, woke snowflakes, disabled people who dare to need state money, non-British people, etc etc. it's not surprising we're miserable fuckers is it.

I attribute this to huge wealth inequality, ongoing effects of austerity, and the quality of life possible here for people in critical professions that are much better respected & enormously better remunerated in other ‘developed’ countries (nursing, medicine).

This might be more tolerable if if was possible to rely on being able to entertain yourself for free outdoors for any part of the year - but the awful weather + lack of accessible green space means most people on average or below average salaries are stuck indoors looking out at the drizzle from their tiny flats and houses more or less year-round.

I also think the atomization of families plays a big part in all of this.

A snapshot of the last four years would include lockdowns, the rise of a parallel life lived online with randoms rather than in real life, children and adults seeking company in their phone screens rather than real life conversations. Throw in a double, or even treble rise in the price of basic store cupboard food and it’s no wonder we’re depicted as a miserable place to live.

We’ve had “austerity measures” for the last decade while it’s obvious some people are noticeably richer during the same period. I know my salary hasn’t kept pace with inflation and with price rises I’m effectively earning as much as 20 years ago, this is not uncommon especially in the public sector!

Our ridiculous social hierarchy, with Royals at the top, used to make us feel being British was a bit special because we mistook the class system for having “class”. Now even that is a shambles!

Add in the general feeling of being ripped off constantly as mentioned previously, and the false impression that we’re being invaded by boat people, plus the national idiocy of Brexit, and there you have it.

Being British no longer means we are globally influential, and hard work doesn’t necessarily improve quality of life. Meh.

I think loneliness and isolation is a real problem which impacts people's mental health and general health. Anyone can be lonely, it's not just a problem for elderly people. When I was a lone parent with ds1 I used to cry with loneliness. I also had no family or friends. People don't live near their families so much now and there's no sense of community either. Human beings aren't supposed to exist alone.

50 years ago, that's 1974!! I think you would have more opportunities to buy house than now for example, income to house ratio has more than doubled since the 1970s!

The period after the second world war until the early 1970s is often called the Golden age of capitalism and is when wealth and regional inequality was the lowest it had ever been in the 20th century and was lower than now in 2024! My family are working class on both sides and following the war all managed to buy homes, some managed to start their own successful businesses, my parents both went to university on grants, they worked abroad in the 70s, my Dad became an Economist and they bought a detached home in south west London and other parts of London by the time they were 27!

I agree with this.

I also think people's personal finances are a huge issue. And a feeling of powerless as the Government focus on fringe issues that aren't going to help most people (Rwanda, extremism etc).

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/16/negative-budgets-cost-of-living-crisis-could-lose-the-tories-dozens-of-seats

Young people can't see how they are ever going to have houses and a family. Everyone working is getting more and more frazzled by the expectation to "do more with less" and there's no time to do the basic things humans need to make themselves feel better (mindfulness, connection, living in the moment).

Happiness =/= affluence and I can well see how people are happier in much poorer countries because they don't feel so ground down and hopeless in their day to day lives.

I moved to UK in 2000 and loved it until about 2018 or so. I think it was a realisation that
a) weather is rubbish - I don't mind wet or cold but it is always grey.
b) no cohesiveness - society doesn't know what it wants. In poorer countries (where I'm from) people have to deal with real life stuff (real food poverty). Here people are comfortable, even when they don't know it, so the subjects such as trans issues are debated endlessly. In poor societies people don't have time for that, due to real pressing issues.
c) no social ties - at least where I live no one just pops around for drink at each other's, you have to arrange everything months in advance, neighbours are mostly keeping to themselves, no kids anywhere but all in clubs.
d) kids getting education that's one dimensional. There is no focus on real life skills or practical skills. I have no idea why kids have to stay in general education for so long. Much better model is to have primary 7-14 yo and then specialist secondary according what kids want to specialise in. Kids generally unhappy from quite a young age. I don't know why.
e) long working hours culture because you have to be seen to work long hours to progress, rather than do your work and go home.
Makes family time precious.

We know that belonging to a strong community which cares for and supports each other, celebrating the success and achievement of its members, is at the heart of happiness. We have lost that, hence the decline in mental health.

It’s actually fairly easy to build community back up. It’s free, doesn’t take that much effort but people need to have the will to do it.

I don't see the problem with doing this to cold callers. If you know you have no interest in whatever it is they are pushing, why waste their time and yours?

50 years ago - 1964

1964 is 60 years ago ...

The people saying the U.K. has lost its pride, that is certainly a major contributing factor but one I feel is mostly pertinent to England specifically. I still see a lot of pride in being Welsh, Scottish or Irish. But there seems to be an air of embarrassment in showing pride in ones Englishness. It’s certainly unfashionable to the least, current trends have long dictated that you must be disparaging about England unless you wish to appear akin to a beer guzzling, football shirt wearing oaf with a bull dog tattoo.

This is the thing, people say inequality is getting worse. Is it?

Depends what you mean by inequality. The rich have got a lot richer in the past few decades, but the poor aren't anywhere near as poor as they once were pre-NHS and pre-welfare state - and thank goodness for that.

Yes, food bank usage is at an all-time high, because rent, bills, mortgage payments, etc have all gone up a lot in a very short period of time. But are DC walking the streets with no shoes? No. Are they starving? No. Because there are food banks, breakfast clubs, charities, freecycle, etc. But I think most people, whoever they are, think they should be able to afford to buy stuff new - shoes, clothes, appliances, etc. And they think they should be entitled to a holiday and to days out and to have nice things - whether they work or not. And that's never been the case before. But now it is, because they see so-and-so on social media is living it large in Dubai or Spain or wherever and they think 'Why the fuck is so-and-so doing that when I can't afford it?'. IMO, reality and expectations have been massively skewed by social media.

I'm in Ireland. I would probably be very unhappy if we hadn't had a lot of help from family to go towards buying our home. It'd be the four of us renting some crappy studio apartment somewhere, struggling to get by. Government has a lot to answer for but I don't see how Sinn Fein would be any better.

50 years ago - 1964

You wouldn't have been a skivvy - you may have had a basic manual job but it was basically respected and the people who you knew and socialised with were in the same position as you - you found it easy to keep up with the jones ( even if that didn't mean you had stuff , you all had the same lack )

At that time the factory bosses lived close to their workforce ( cars only just starting to impact society ) so they had more respect and understanding of the lives of- because they were all the same community - they walked to work with the staff . They were paid more , but not the wage gaps we see today

you would be seeing how much better your life and opportunities were compared to your parents and grandparents - free health, education, improving housing

There was inequality but it was far far less than today - think 1 to 10 as opposed to 1 to 500 ( someone has worked it out somewhere ) and it wasn't rubbed in your face

You would believe that you could make it up the social ladder with hard work

It’s what you have to compare it to. Quality of life for UK working age and children now is, on balance and overall, worse than it was for the generation before us. That’s not the case in many countries. Quality of life peaked several decades back in the U.K. and it will never reach as high again in our lifetime. And yes I know things were never perfect and every era had it’s bad points and there has always been poverty and suffering.

I agree with all of this.