Fifteen years ago, young Canadians were among the happiest and most optimistic people in the world.
No longer. They have soured on their lives and their future, and the reasons are directly related to the public policy choices their elders have made to make themselves feel virtuous.
It’s really simple actually: pic.twitter.com/hkpMrMC4X0
— Genia🔮 (@Genia_XBT) December 15, 2025
The shift in attitudes is shocking, especially in so short a time, and without some traumatic generational shock like a war or a great depression. What is driving the decline in attitude is the radical shift in their prospects for a better life.
VANCOUVER — As a teen growing up in Toronto, Bhavik Sharma imagined what life would look like at 25.
He and his high school friends would be starting families. They’d be on six-figure salaries and living comfortably.
Now 27, he’s back living with his parents in Kitchener, Ont., driven out of Toronto by high rent and other costs.
“I think back then, in that generation, it was definitely a lot easier,” Sharma said of the path to adulthood for his parents, who moved to Canada from India about 30 years ago.
“You’d get your job, you would save up, you’d get a house, you could invest in business.”
Now, as he saves for the down payment on his first home, Sharma understands those things come later for many in his generation. And everything costs more, he said, from housing to food.
Sharma is among a generation of Canadians whose idea of a dream life could be in a state of “flux,” researchers say, forcing them to reconsider what it means, and what it takes, to be happy.
From families to finances, benchmarks are happening later for Canada’s young — and their happiness levels have been plummeting.
The World Happiness Report says Canadians under 30 were the happiest age group in the country as recently as 2011.
Now, they’re the unhappiest.
The 2024 edition of the decades-long study of global happiness, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, asked participants to picture their life as a ladder, with the best possible life at 10 and the worst at zero.
While many countries among the 134 covered by the research have also seen happiness levels fall among those under 30 since 2006, the slide of young Canadians down the ladder is exceptional.
Only four countries have seen a worse decline — Jordan, Venezuela, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
I’m not sure what is going on in Jorday, but I do know that being in the same category as Venezuela, Lebanon, and Afghanistan is a sign that your leaders have failed you. Those countries fit quite comfortably in the category that Trump called “s**thole countries.
That almost matches this chart… pic.twitter.com/MbHWc4Tlbh
— Will Wilberforce (@WillWilburforce) December 15, 2025
If you look at the decline and correlate it with rapid changes in public policy, it’s striking how the decline in happiness has coincided with sudden, massive shifts in public policy. And the biggest sudden and massive shift was the vast expansion of immigration that began at the same time as the gradual then sudden decline in Canadians’ economic prospects.
Of course, correlation is not causation, but as you can see from the chart, the housing crisis began, unsurprisingly, at the same time, and one of the most consistent complaints for young Canadians is their inability to afford a home.
Canadians are not exactly UNhappy compared to other places, but the trend is shocking in its size and rapidity, and is still accelerating. Canadians have a lot farther to fall than most, and are still comparatively wealthy.
“We had a vision about what becoming an adult meant in terms of your job, and your financial security and having a home,” he said.
“Exactly what it looks like to reach that later stage of life is changing.”
Young people across Canada interviewed by The Canadian Press described the challenge of building lives they once imagined, bogged down by an unaffordable housing market, struggles to save for the future, online gloom and a growing youth mental health crisis.
Fitness instructor Taylor Arnt of Winnipeg, 27, said she’s processing the idea she might never get married or have children, as she grapples with day-to-day challenges.
Ontario graduate Thivian Varnacumaaran, 25, applied for more than 400 jobs before finding work and considers living with his parents a privilege.
Communications CEO Kathryn LeBlanc, 31, spoke of the demands of the 24-hour news cycle.
And some in a B.C. mental health program told of limited support.
Many also spoke of finding ways to be happy in the moment, even if their lives haven’t yet turned out the way they pictured.
“I am happy, yeah,” said Sharma. Family, friends, vacations and balancing work expectations bring him joy.
“I try to stay positive.”
But public policies are driving up costs and making it much harder. Net Zero, immigration, expanding regulations, and proximity to America, where opportunities are still greater, all combine to create a toxic stew that is souring the mood.
Before 2014, well-being in Canada could be broadly described as a U-shaped trajectory. Satisfaction was high among youth, declined to a low point in mid-life, then rose again as people got older.
John Helliwell, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of British Columbia and a founding editor of the World Happiness Report, said that U-shape is no more.
“The happiness of the young has dropped sufficiently far … below that of the middle-aged that used to be the least happy. It’s now the young and then the middle-aged, and then the uprising at the end is still there.”
Helliwell said social and economic conditions are not seen by today’s young as promising, unlike previous generations.
“The chances of getting a job and the chances of getting a job with a future — that’s one dimension. And the other is the price of housing,” he said.
“Where you live is a very important part of how you feel about your life. Feelings of economics and residential security clearly (are) important to happiness, so uncertainty about either of those aspects of life is going to play in a negative way.”
In 2023, the Bank of Canada’s housing affordability index hit its worst level in 41 years.
Middle-aged people used to be the least happy generation, likely because they were the farthest away from the hope that characterizes the young, have discovered that there are only a limited number of high-pay, high-prestige jobs to go around, and they have a long way to go before retirement and greater freedom.
Now, the harsher aspects of reality are pretty clear to the young, because there is less hope to buoy the mood.
Statistics Canada says the average age of marriage has steadily increased, from 25 in 1968 to 35 in 2019. (Data since has been skewed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which StatCan says saw many delay marriage plans).
Over the same period, the agency says the average age of first-time mothers rose from 22 to 29, while the average age of all mothers rose to nearly 32 in 2024, up from almost 27 in 1976.
“A lot of people don’t prioritize love, kids, as much as they used to,” said Violet Rode, an 18-year-old theatre student at Montreal’s Dawson College.
“And because of the money thing, people aren’t having as many kids, people aren’t going out as on many dates.”
Varnacumaaran, now working as an electrical designer in Markham, Ont., said he longed for his own family and children one day.
But for now, he’s focused on saving, as he lives with his parents.
“I don’t want to spend on unnecessary things, so I try my best to do that,” said Varnacumaaran.
Arnt recently lost her job as a policy analyst and is working as a contracted consultant and group fitness instructor. She said many young people can’t have the same timeline as older generations, whether with marriage, children or financial goals.
“It’s really difficult to plan for a future and think about those goals when you’re struggling to meet your day-to-day basic needs.”
Policy makers spend a lot of time and effort jawboning their constituents about how important it is to be kind to migrants, but relatively little on making their constituents’ own lives better.
Twenty-three percent of Canada’s permanent residents are foreign-born, and the number of immigrants per year has skyrocketed since 2010.
Vancouver city councillor: https://t.co/2tFXxc7LcA pic.twitter.com/LCfwO9hq7W
— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) December 15, 2025
Is it shocking that native-born Canadians are unhappy to see their bright futures handed over to foreigners?
Even if every immigrant were a net contributor who brought no problems from their home countries—which is obviously not the case—such a significant population shock of working-age immigrants would cause massive displacement. The last time that happened in the United States it caused massive social strife and a backlash, and the backlash to Biden’s policies demonstrates that this was not a one-off.
Canada’s relative immigration boom has been even larger than our own, and obviously, the shock has been greater.
It hasn’t worked out better for them than for us.
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