Return to Article Details Flourishing in Sweden: Great overall—but not for all Download Download PDF
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> In Sweden and other parts of the Western world, for example, recent findings point to a widening intergenerational gap where older adults report increasing well being while younger individuals experience notable declines
So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves.
> So it is just a case of older people pulling the ladder up behind themselves.
Is it though? I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less. Now we are so connected and everybody wants what they consider the standard according to social media: huge house in the most prominent city in their country, N exotic vacations every year, meaningful job, etc. But this would be a pretty tall order even 20 or 40 years ago.
By cayleyh 2026-02-0323:08 I too feel this is a huge part of it, coupled with the fact that "basics" of last generation (a home you own, a stable job that doesn't overwork you on evenings and weekends, affordable options to have a family) are also being priced out of many peoples lives. You feel like you're not matching what your parents and cultural artifacts tell you you should be achieving at your age, and at the same time you're flooded with influencers on ski trips to Japan or snorkelling in Jamaica every other weekend, and it's a perfect recipe for feeling bad about your life no matter how well off you're doing compared to yesterdays median statistic.
By AlecSchueler 2026-02-048:59 > I have a feeling that previous generations were simply happy with less.
They could also afford to buy houses on minimum wage salaries.
I have a much higher salary than my parents, and I'm theory I can get more things from further afar, but I still live in a much more precarious situation.
By polishdude20 2026-02-0319:562 reply It's the baby boomer phenomenon. They reaped the rewards back then and are still reaping the rewards. The benefits have been following that age group through their lives. Its like a rolling window.
somewhat tangential, but most interesting phenomeon is the phaseshift non-boomers will undergo when they're around 45, surveying what's left, realizing how much they have paid into the system already, and desperate to claim the same rewards. it's a perpetuum mobile. if it needs to end, the young will have to wrestle it from their seniors _now_, because that gap closes fast.
By marcosdumay 2026-02-0320:201 reply Most developed countries are peaking in costs to young people right now. The people entering workforce now are getting a huge bad surprise, but the cost of supporting older people will start to decrease very soon.
So, if you are looking for some future phase shift, you are searching for the wrong thing.
Also, most of the developing countries will be in that situation in ~20 years. Most underdeveloped ones will get there in an extra decade or two.
By trgn 2026-02-0321:13 the population bulge is at 50-60. with tfr as low as they are, we're looking at at multiple decades of a top-heavy pyramid. that's not disappearing anytime soon, it will take a lifetime.
Can you blame them for existing during early globalization, before over the financialization of everything? It's not like they actively took more than they "should have" from anyone directly, it's a consequence of their local economy and where it was at the time.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-0320:132 reply > It's not like they actively took more than they "should have" from anyone directly
And who do you think exactly contributed to the over financialization of everything? Every single thing, good or bad, is a direct result of the actions of the generation before. We can thank them for creating a world where women get to vote but also criticize them for creating a world where everything costs a million dollars and all young people can earn is pennies. At any point in time they could’ve been like “this may not in my selfish interest, but it will ensure the future generations can have the same life as i do” and pushed for policies accordingly. But that didn’t happen.
By dinobones 2026-02-0320:25 Has any society ever behaved that way? It's already a push to get people to think of the middle/lower classes during the present.
I understand the desire to find an entity or group of people to blame, but they were acting in their own self interest at a peak time, they didn't know the party would be over soon, for many of them, it still isn't.
> And who do you think exactly contributed to the over financialization of everything? Every single thing, good or bad, is a direct result of the actions of the generation before.
Some elements of the generation before. It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few. There were some elite people with a plan, many more who bought the propaganda they were served, and a lot who had nothing to do with any of it.
Also, it's worth noting (to help build empathy) that you and me likely have been suckered by propaganda for things that the next generation will curse us for, but we just think we're being sensible and informed.
The least you could do is blame an ideological faction of that generation (e.g. neoliberals), rather than blaming the whole generation itself. Among many advantages, that names the problem in a way that can solve it.
By darth_avocado 2026-02-0322:021 reply > It's is exceedingly unhelpful the blame an entire generation for the actions of a few.
The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to. Shifting the blame to the actions of the few is an easy way to absolve yourself of the blame. Who allows the few to take those actions? How did those few come into power to be able to take those actions? Once the actions were taken, why were they not corrected if the entire generation disagreed with them?
Maybe in the future the generations will blame my generation for a bunch of wrongs, even if I personally may not have contributed to those wrongs, I will still share the burden of not doing enough to prevent it.
> The unfortunate reality is that every generation has the power to change things if they want to.
That's an illusion. I think what you're really doing is putting unreasonable demands on the entire baby boomer generation, then blaming them for not succeeding at an impossible task. I mean, seriously, you really think, say, some boomer factory worker in Ohio is to blame for not foreseeing the effects of some 1980-era policy on 2026 or even 2006? They didn't have the benefit of the hindsight that we have.
It sounds like you're really holding tight onto blame, but what good does that do you? It solves no problems, and at best, alienates people from you.
By _DeadFred_ 2026-02-0418:56 Yes. The effects of 1980s policy was talked about endlessly and everywhere, to the point childhood me understood the coming effects. I used to joke to my parents my generation was going to create old people homes attached to factories to make them pay us back.
By dotdi 2026-02-0320:18 You _can_ blame them for several high-impact things they willingly did or at least supported, e.g. benefiting greatly from public spending yet successively voting to restrict it later on; f*cking over the real estate market and squeezing younger generations with extreme rents/prices; refusing any kind of social reforms while it has been obvious for decades that current models don't scale; decoupling of productivity from wages; and last but not least racking up huge carbon debt that later generations will pay dearly for.
By kridsdale1 2026-02-0320:101 reply They didn’t passively exist during it. They implemented it. They are culpable.
There are 67 million baby boomers in the US. How can you rationally blame them all? Roughly 20% of the population.
Saying the "boomers ruined everything" is not sophisticated, we can't move forward from a blame game, we have to diagnose the actions and actors that implemented them, but of course this is much more challenging.
Ancedotally, I know plenty of poor boomers. Have you seen who works at a Dollar Tree lately?
The popular dialogue that boomer=rich and greedy, millennial=poor and exploited is not productive, it's a fabricated generational war that distracts us from the real issues.
By S_Bear 2026-02-0321:43 My parents are poor boomers, but if they had to live as I do, they'd be rich boomers. They have no financial discipline and burned through cash like crazy. If they would have saved even a little bit in the 80s and 90s, they'd be in a much better situation.
I wonder about that.
I'm older now, work with a lot of great young peers. Their lifestyle though at that age is nothing like mine was. I worked through school (admittedly because I wasn't very good at school). My first real jobs just barely paid for everything. First apartment was pretty, spartan. Eating out or going out was infrequent. I liked sports, but when I did go to sporting events I was in the cheap seats on the cheap food promotion night.
That's not the lifestyle I see today. I don't blame younger folks for wanting it, it's shown to them everywhere. But the expectations are different and living them has financial consequences too.
I don't have a source, but I've been hearing that this is just common among young people everywhere.
They blamed social media for Americans.
I'd blame the ever decreasing ratio between salaries and the cost of living.
And the fact that salaries don't really grow for years now, while the productivity, and so the generated wealth, does.
By PassingClouds 2026-02-0320:202 reply I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues.
I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.
By hysan 2026-02-040:25 I’ll be honest and say that while I agree, I’d be one of those who’d get significantly burned financially if this were to happen. Having made significant lifestyle cuts to eventually get our foot in the door and now dealing with one of us being laid off (100% due to the current administration), devaluing housing would essentially lock us into where we currently live for the rest of our lives and prevent us from moving to a lower cost of living area near retirement (which was part of our original financial planning). Combined with the fact that our generation is unlikely to see social security as a viable pillar of support (ex: retirement age requirements increasing), I want to support the idea but I have yet to see a solution that won’t burn the population of people like myself. To support this would be to offer ourselves up as sacrifices and that is something I don’t think I could ask of someone. If someone could crack that nut and have a “soft landing” for those who are going to get screwed, then I think there’s a fighting chance that we solve this before it all becomes untenable.
(Edit: To clarify, when I hear devaluing housing, I’m interpreting that as an enormous price decrease. The impact to us is that we wouldn’t be able to sell our house for anywhere near the cost we paid for it. We didn’t buy as it as an asset but we also didn’t plan for it to become a huge loss that could have instead gone into retirement savings.)
The problem is most people won't take that attitude. For most homeowners, the home is the largest asset.
This is a Catch 22 for elected officials. We must reduce housing costs dramatically if we do so, we will devalue significant assets of a large number of active voters and political contributors.
I'd love to see some ideas on how to pull this off, because we need them.
By bojan 2026-02-0323:15 The home is the largest asset, but the one you're living in. I personally agree with the other guy, I'd happily support a housing market crash, artificially induced if needed.
However, it's more nuanced. I can support risking that my house gets less worth than my mortgage, because I consider the probability of not being able to pay off my mortgage very low. I am guessing that people who feel less secure financially do see a house as a last-resort asset, even at the price of their children not being able to afford a home. And that's the root cause that should be fixed with policy I think.
By autoexec 2026-02-0322:48 There are a few things I wish we'd do in the US. We could not allow foreign investors to buy up properties in the US to use as short term rentals (airbnb) when they could instead be purchased by Americans and filled with families. We could also increase vacancy taxes to help encourage property owners to fill the millions of empty homes found all over the country. We could also decrease the wealth gap so that more Americans have enough money that they don't have to wait until they are 40 years old to buy their first starter house. (https://nypost.com/2025/11/05/real-estate/median-age-of-firs...)
meaningfully, this is equivalent to the parent commenter. "technology"
I loathe the "pop critique" employment of the phrase, but this is definitionally late-stage capitalism.
obviously capitalism is named as such because it is founded upon the concept of (private) capital. capital serves to lower margins and increase profitability. it has been remarkably successful and has immensely raised QoL for virtually the planet's entire population. we are now reckoning with its inevitable consequences. manpower is unreliable. it gets sick. it has children. it has eccentricities. it is fundamentally unpredictable. Capital seeks efficiency and reliability. What percentage of the population is capable of building data centers? Of engineering massive scale LLMs?
What happens when Capital no longer needs labor?
By colechristensen 2026-02-0320:081 reply It's got nothing to do with that. People that don't need it are hoarding wealth.
It's real estate value all the way down. Apartments getting tinier while getting more expensive, homes being out of reach or taking up an enormous amount of total pay in order to finance.
People who own aren't living off their own labor's fruits saved for the future but on the massively increased value they're selling something they didn't have to pay nearly as much for. (not talking about inflation but actual hours of labor)
You have middle aged people doing not much better than introductory jobs because the people who needed to retire haven't.
The CEO pay multiple is just ridiculous.
By daseiner1 2026-02-0320:10 I don't believe we disagree.
The answer is and always has been "paperclips."
without human influence or directive, capital ceases to be become anything meaningful beyond [insert data type] at which point, it spreads like a cancer, ie: universal paperclips
Capitalism is revered due to how it has significantly impacted the living standards of populations that participate in it. But increasing the living standards of populations was never the purpose of capitalism, it was a simply a side-effect.
By daseiner1 2026-02-0320:11 Indeed. It is a blind force of nature.
By _DeadFred_ 2026-02-0419:11 Capitalism started with the East India Company. That is the real Capitalist world choice. We treat our strongly regulated society as 'Capitalism' for some reason (while the Capitalists tell us we need to get rid of all the regulation that keeps them in check).
Capitalism left to it's own authority creates payment in company scrip and company towns. Capitalism WANTS labor trapped with company script/company towns. Just because society outlawed that doesn't mean Capitalism isn't working in other ways to recreate that. What Capitalism does not want is empowered labor or labor lifted out from dire situations. Society is what has done that, not Capitalism.
Without strict government oversight Capitalism is horrible and gives horrible results to society at large. It just has done an incredible job of painting modern society as Capitalism and claiming all benefits of things that aren't inherently from Capitalism but from Government oversite.
By ddellacosta 2026-02-0319:291 reply > They blamed social media for Americans.
I think you meant "blamed Americans for social media" but at this point they both kinda fit
By swasheck 2026-02-0319:34 i interpreted it as "for the phenomenon noted in Americans, they blamed social media."
By bryanlarsen 2026-02-0319:422 reply Among young people everywhere and everywhen? I would guess that young people were less satisfied with life than older folks in most every time period.
By bryanlarsen 2026-02-0320:36 Answering my own question: in the past life satisfaction studies were traditionally U-shaped; satisfaction was lowest at "mid-life crisis" age, and higher for the young and old.
By sejje 2026-02-0320:29 No, sorry -- I've heard the current crop of young people worldwide is reporting lower life satisfaction, high rates of mental health issues, etc
Is there any period in history when the young people reported being as happy or happier than the older cohort?
By bryanlarsen 2026-02-0319:591 reply Really? I would expect people at risk of being drafted during a war being much less happy than older people not at risk.
By Ensorceled 2026-02-0320:041 reply Why would you be worried about being drafted during a war AFTER the war?
By bryanlarsen 2026-02-0320:13 Sorry, misread your original comment. But it seems to me that young people in the 50's and 60's (aka the golden age most Americans think of) where much more dissatisfied than older people -- the 60's were notorious for protests.
By asdff 2026-02-0319:56 Right when LSD hit the scene. But seriously boomers in the US and europe had it great because they knew what their parents and grandparents went through. Until the vietnam draft for americans I guess.
By gulfofamerica 2026-02-0319:56 [dead]
By qweiopqweiop 2026-02-0319:433 reply Sweden is such an interesting country. Arguably peak gender equality, but also child assassins and bombs right now. I hope they can sort out their issues.
By dsign 2026-02-0319:54 > but also child assassins and bombs right now
Yes, "interesting" is the right word. The government is talking about suspending cell phones for kids in connection to that. But honestly, what's really scary right now is how many kids and young adults seem to be "zombified" (for lack of a better word), and how bad this turns out later in the job market. Tomorrow I need to have a serious talk with my boss about how we should not hire a prospect because of total lack of in-person interactivity. Immigrants from war and poverty-stricken countries are over-represented in our "successful hires" pool because they still know how to speak.
By 1313ed01 2026-02-0319:58 January 2026 was the first month since March 2018 with no one shot dead here in Sweden. I guess that is good, but one theory is that it is correlated with January also being the coldest month in decades, and low temperatures tend to calm things down.
Sorry but that’s just not true. You learn about what happens in Sweden because statistically it never happens.
On the other hand, the rest of the world never know about the latest bi-monthly school shooting in the US.
By weirdmantis69 2026-02-0320:022 reply Sorry but it is true, almost entirely because of immigration. https://dragonflyintelligence.com/news/sweden-gang-bombings-...
Wishing it away doesn't make it any less true.
By gamblor956 2026-02-0321:501 reply Today i learned that Sweden is blaming immigrants for crimes committed by native born Swedes.
Sweden has always had a fairly high crime rate. Immigrants didn't make it worse, but blaming them just made an existing problem more visible.
Sweden has not had a “fairly high crime rate”, this is a totally bogus statement.
And yes, 2nd generation immigrants are clearly over represented when it comes to crime, in Sweden and every wheee else.
In Sweden these issues are pronounced because of a ridiculous taboo that existed 1995-2020 to even discuss this problem.
But it turns out, if you import >1 million people from dysfunctional societies with entirely different cultures, while sticking your head in the sand, you will faces issues…
FWIW I am from Sweden, was born in 1986. These problems were obvious to me.
Murder/homicide rate has been relatively consistent since 1990 https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/swe/swe...
By gamblor956 2026-02-095:16 The point of the information was that Sweden has a relatively high crime rate. For point of comparison, most of of the L.A. area has a lower crime rate than Sweden.
The other point was that the arrival of immigrants did not increase the crime rate.
By MisterTea 2026-02-0321:42 That article says nothing of immigration though.
