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High gdp per capita countries have also experienced a divergence of asset and income inflation, which may contribute to a general malaise among young people who see their prospects reduced compared to generations ahead of them. Combine that with an education that has not evolved much despite the economy and technology evolving substantially…

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I grew up in a middle income country (Mexico) and my children, now teenagers, are growing in a high income country (Netherlands). I completely see what the article explains in my schooling experience as compared to theirs.

Material inequality is especially upsetting to teenagers who can't afford cool stuff. There's probably more stress around having to become an adult and pick the right career instead of just knowing you're going to be a farmer or something. Too many choices in general, too much idle time, stuff like that. I was happier as a teenager working my ass off at McDonald's five nights a week than a lot of rich kids.

> PISA test scores and levels of student competition are consistently negative, and levels of student co-operation enter positively. It is interesting to note how, at the macro level, we find that average academic performance is negatively related to students’ SWB, while earlier studies focusing on the link between individual performance and individual life satisfaction usually report a positive link (see Bücker et al., 2018, for a meta study). Note that this is not a contradiction. At the individual level, a student can improve her SWB by performing better in school than her peers. However, at the macro level, overall academic performance and competition within schools increase learning intensity and school-related stress for each student, reducing SWB for the group as a whole. We therefore argue that the intensity of education—which increases with the level of economic development—is very likely to be the mechanism behind our findings.

All work and no play...?