Mental health crisis ‘means youth is no longer one of happiest times of life’

The UN study found that life satisfaction and happiness had fallen among young people over the past decade, and particularly among young women. Photograph: franckreporter/Getty Images

For more than half a century, the midlife crisis has been a feature of western society. Fast cars, impulsive decisions, and peak misery between the age of 40 and 50. But all that is changing, according to experts.

In a new paper commissioned by the UN, the leading academics Jean Twenge and David Blanchflower warn that a burgeoning youth mental health crisis in six English-speaking countries worldwide is upending the traditional pattern of happiness across our lifetimes.