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IGNORANCE ISN’T BLISS: and most of those affected aren’t being treated. adults are particularly vulnerable to mental illness, Youth and young
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WHAT MAKES people miserable? Traditionally, economists have blamed unemployment and poverty as the biggest drivers of despair. But new research suggests this analysis is flawed. “We keep on finding in every country that the mental health problems are the biggest causes of misery,” says Richard Layard from the London School of Economics, who along with colleague Sarah Flèche analyzed happiness and satisfaction surveys from around the world. In a paper published in January in the journal Kyklos, Flèche and Layard found that the correlation between mental illness and misery was strong even when poverty and unemployment were controlled. In other words, it isn’t just that people have mental health troubles only because they face deprivation; the mental problems do a great deal to cause unhappiness whether or not somebody has a job and makes a decent living, Layard says.