The declining mental health of the young in the UK

Using several data sets for the UK we track rising perceptions of mental ill-health among the working-age population in the UK. The trend is apparent among all age groups and for men and women, but it is most pronounced among the young, and especially young women aged under 25. Young men's mental well-being began to fall markedly from 2008 whereas young women's mental ill-health began to deteriorate a few years later. The age profile of mental well-being shifts to the right over time such that the nadir of mental well-being shifts from mid-life, when people are in their late 40s and early 50s, around the time of the Great Recession, to one's early to mid-20s in 2023.