14 DAY TRIAL // A new research carried out by a University of Warwick professor, concluded that emotional prosperity in Europe has been falling for some time now, and European governments should acknowledge that and take suitable measures.
The study presents cross-country evidence on psychological health and mental well-being, as its author, Andrew Oswald, a professor of behavioral science at Warwick Business School, gathered the latest statistical evidence from a wide range of science, social-science and medical journals.
Oswald describes research which concluded that 15 year old Scottish children suffer more from depression and anxiety today, than teens their age did in the 1990s.
Also, those adolescents in turn suffered more than 15 year-olds did a decade before, in the 1980s.
In Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands – the countries with the most reliable longitudinal information on mental health, in randomly chosen samples of adults, there is evidence of continuous worsening psychological distress, and a decline in what the Professor calls 'emotional prosperity'.
Professor Oswald also points out that in the United Kingdom, there are nearly 15% of people that are known to suffer from at least one mental illness.
He stresses that if policy-makers keep on focusing on traditional measures of making money and having material prosperity, they are completely wrong.
Oswald argues that economic growth is useless if people are not enjoying it because they are more and more distressed and can't get rid of the daily pressure.
He says that “fast cars and fast showers are everywhere in western society, but the data show us plainly that all is not well psychologically.”
The study, entitled 'Emotional Prosperity and the Stiglitz Commission' concludes that the phenomenon is caused by the demands of a constant intensification of work, and a viable solution would be the replacement of the idea of material prosperity with the criterion of emotional prosperity.
The study will be published in the December issue of the British Journal of Industrial Relations.