Last month, headlines declared that teens in the UK were “the least happy in Europe”. The source was a report from the Children’s Society – drawing on data from the 2022 international Pisa study – that found 25.2% of 15-year-olds in the UK reported low life satisfaction compared to a European average of 16.6%. As is often the case, the Netherlands was declared the most “happy”, with just 6.7% reporting low life satisfaction.
It is difficult enough to try to compare things like life satisfaction across countries and cultures. And knowing a bit about the Dutch system, I’ve increasingly realised that many of these numbers don’t tell the whole story. For years, the Dutch have scored highly on “happy children” in multiple surveys, such as those by the World Health Organization and Unicef. A lot of young people are clearly in good spirits, with admirable levels of freedom and responsibility. But all of them? Actually, it turns out, we don’t know.
