Youth mental health crisis deepening in UK, and labour market could be to blame

The study goes back further in time than many recent studies of mental ill-health. It establishes that the rise in depression in the UK began in the 1990s, accelerated rapidly after the Great Recession in 2008, and again during the COVID-19 pandemic. The typical age profile of ill-being has changed over this period, changing from an inverted U-shape with the highest level of mental ill-being in middle-age, to one where it is highest at younger ages and declines steadily with age.
 
The decline in the mental health of the young started with a rapid fall among young men around 2008, at the time of the Great Recession and, a few years later, among young women.
 
Since 2020 in the UK, phobias and panics, depression, anxiety and General Health Questionnaire scores have been highest among the young, the study found, while life satisfaction, happiness and mental wellbeing scores were lowest for the young.
 
According to Labour Force Survey statistics analysed for the study, 1.3% of young people in Scotland were depressed in 2000 and 0.6% were depressed in the rest of the UK. By 2023, the figure was 15.7% in Scotland and 7.8% in the rest of the UK.

UK crisis 

Professor David Bell, labour economist at the University of Stirling Business School, said: “There is no question that the UK has been living through a crisis of mental ill-being, and the mental health struggles of young people have been well documented. However, the questions are why and what are the effects?
 
“The rising rates of NEETs, as uncovered by last week’s Millburn report, cannot be fully understood without looking at young people’s feelings about their mental health. Our findings show that unemployment, under-employment and an unstable labour market are possible contributing factors to the crisis, for all young people. One cannot be addressed without looking at the other.”
 
Co-author Professor Alex Bryson, of UCL Social Research Institute, said: "Our paper tracks rates of mental ill health in the UK back much further than previous research. Fast-forward to today and we find it is young people who have the highest rates of depression.
 
“The growth in poor mental health among young people tracks the growth in youth unemployment, relative to older people. Something needs to be done, and we tentatively suggest the place to start is the labour market."
 
Among the authors’ recommendations are that policymakers should consider subsidising youth employment, as was done prior to the 2008 recession. Other suggested solutions are interventions to improve job access and security, and efforts to reduce social isolation, including community work, outdoor activity and sports.