Yes, there is a kind of human capital problem:
We show the incidence of mental illness has increased particularly among young people over the years and particularly in Scotland. The incidence of mental illness among young men in particular, began to increase in 2008 when the Great Recession began and among young women in 2012. the peak of depression is shifting from mid-life, when people are in their 40s and early 50s, during the Great Recession, to the early to mid-20s in 2023. These trends become more prominent when one lowers a large amount. of proxy respondents in UK Labor Force Surveys, showing that accompanying family members do not underestimate the poor mental health of respondents, especially if the respondents are young. We report consistent evidence from Scottish Health Surveys and UK samples from Eurobarometer surveys. Our findings are consistent with those of the United States and suggest that, although smartphone technology may be closely associated with a decline in young people’s mental health, the rise in mental illness in the UK since the late 1990s suggests that other factors must be at play.
That’s according to a new NBER working paper by David G. Blanchflower, Alex Bryson, and David NF Bell. By the way, on the subject of “smart phone causality”, here are some recent songs. And the answer, and the answer at that.
Note that in my rough, human-first hypothesis, the difference is increasing. So the top achievers are very impressive, but that also means that the number of problem cases, towards the bottom of the distribution, goes up as well.
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