At a recent Generation Squeeze/We Should Be Friends collab event, attendees were asked a trivia question: What is the biggest driver of the decline in happiness among young people in Canada? In a room of more than 100 Millennials and Gen Z, almost everyone guessed it was social media.

If social media were the primary driver, we might expect similar happiness declines in countries like Canada, where young people consume similar platforms and content. Yet the World Happiness Report tells a different story. 

Canadians under the age of 25 are less happy than younger generations elsewhere. Young Canadians ranks 71st globally, compared with the United States (60th), the United Kingdom (32nd), Australia (18th), New Zealand (16th), and Ireland (15th). While social media may play a role, it does not explain why young Canadians are falling behind many comparable countries. 

So where else should we look to explain why young people are increasingly miserable? 

More than a decade of evidence compiled by Gen Squeeze points to a more compelling explanation: the growing disconnect between hard work and meaningful outcomes. That research is backed up by even more evidence from Helliwell at the University of Alberta: When younger people work hard yet still find homeownership, financial security, starting a family, and other life milestones out of reach, the consequences extend beyond their bank accounts — they shape mental health, identity, and happiness.

The data show that the core driver of young Canadians’ decline in happiness is the housing affordability crisis. Housing cost increases have wildly outpaced growth in earnings, leaving young people with a far steeper climb to afford a place to call home than previous generations. It takes the average young, full-time worker 13 years to save a down payment on an average home today compared to 5 years in 1976, a trend driven by decades of government policies rooted in a culture addicted to building wealth for homeowners.

Homeownership has been pushed out of reach for too many younger people, leaving them to instead contend with the financial burden of rising rents. Given this reality, it’s no surprise why so many young Canadians feel hopeless when it comes to home ownership: among Canadians who do not own a home, 72% say they have given up on ever achieving this goal.

Despite the scale of the structural challenges facing younger generations, the conversation often focuses on what they are supposedly doing wrong. Young people are frequently told that they simply are not working hard enough, or that they would be better off financially if they stopped spending money on matcha lattes, takeout, skincare, concerts, or getting their nails done. 

Spending habits do matter. Making thoughtful financial decisions is important. But the question is whether cutting out a few discretionary purchases would meaningfully change someone's ability to buy a home, pay off student debt, or keep pace with rising living costs. For most young Canadians, the answer is no. Saving a few dollars each week is unlikely to close the gap. 

This disconnect between individual responsibility and the structural conditions shaping young people’s lives is what motivates our work. We are Sofie Jensen and Michelle Wojciechowski, Master of Public Health students at the University of British Columbia and practicum students with Generation Squeeze. 

Our work documents the worsening social determinants of health affecting younger generations, and explores solutions to restore hope for younger Canadians. In particular, we examine how declining economic conditions, housing unaffordability, and increasing financial pressures, contribute to poorer wellbeing among Gen Z and Millennials. We will explore these issues over the coming months, examining how hard work no longer pays off in the same way it once did, and ways Canada could compensate younger generations in response.  

As members of a generation disproportionately affected by these worsening conditions, we understand both the aspirations of young people striving to build a better future and the structural barriers standing in their way. We understand the frustration of feeling overlooked and of seeing the challenges facing our generation misrepresented by narratives that place responsibility on individuals rather than acknowledging the broader realities shaping our lives. 

When embarking on this work, we initially felt a sense of hopelessness. We know that younger generations are experiencing a different reality from what previous generations experienced, and that hard work is often no longer enough to reach the major life milestones that it once did. It can feel as though there is nothing we can do to change this — or, more accurately, that the forces driving these changes are beyond our control.  But there is something that we can do. 

The challenges facing younger Canadians are too large for any one individual to change, but they are not beyond our collective control. The work of Generation Squeeze over the past decade demonstrates that collective action can influence how governments understand and respond to generational inequality. From helping establish generational fairness as a lens for government budgets, to playing an instrumental role in securing $10-a-day child care, supporting the introduction of Vancouver’s empty homes tax, and advancing measures to address housing speculation and unaffordability, Generation Squeeze — and the thousands of Canadians who have joined forces in this work — demonstrate that change is possible when people come together to demand it. 

If you are frustrated by how the current conditions are shaping your everyday life and limiting the choices available to you, join us in exploring what young Canadians are experiencing. Share your frustrations with us, and tell us about the Canada you want to see. Most importantly, turn that frustration into collective action that can create meaningful change — so that, one day, hard work can once again translate into the future we are working so hard to build.