There’s a happiness gap between young people in Quebec and in the rest of Canada

MONTREAL — Joshua Bujold, an upbeat psychology student in his first semester at Montreal’s Dawson College, was taken aback to find out that happiness among young Canadians has plunged.

Outside Quebec, that is.

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Bujold’s home province is an outlier among data showing the happiness of Canadians under 30 has dropped so fast that they’ve gone from being the country’s happiest age group to its unhappiest in less than 15 years.

That slide, depicted in the 2024 World Happiness Report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, was news to Bujold.

“In Quebec itself, I know a lot of people, and I think a lot … are really happy, especially the youth,” said the 17-year-old.

Researchers at the University of Toronto, who authored a subsequent 2024 Canadian Happiness Report, said the slide in Quebec is less notable across a range of metrics.

Since 2014, they said, life evaluations among young people in Quebec have improved slightly in Gallup polling, while large declines in mental health are “much weaker” in Quebec, according to Statistics Canada data.

The report says cultural and linguistic factors could potentially explain why young people in Quebec think they have it better.

Maybe it comes down to a collective sense of pride that francophones share, said Bujold.

“I feel pride is a very similar thing to happiness,” he said.

“In Montreal, I definitely see a lot less happiness than I do outside of Montreal, where a lot of francophones are,” said Bujold, also a francophone.

Can something like pride be quantified?

Anthony McCanny, lead author on 2024 Canadian Happiness Report, said while it can’t easily be proven, it appears cultural differences could be at play — especially when considering anglophones in Quebec tend to score closer to the national average when it comes to self-reported mental health.

“That was a really important piece of information for us to start thinking about what is driving this difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada,” he said.

The 2024 World Happiness Report found English-speaking Western nations are all witnessing a decline in the well-being of their under-30s. So it might be that young francophones are being exposed to a different social media landscape, McCanny said.

“This suggests that there is something special about the English sphere,” McCanny said. “Perhaps English youth culture, or English social media, is creating expectations of life that are hard to live up to.”

But McCanny said it’s also possible that different living conditions in Quebec are a factor.

John Helliwell, emeritus professor of economics at the University of British Columbia and a founding editor of the World Happiness report, also suggests francophone social media could be a factor.

“That difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada in the size of this drop is evidence in favour of saying it isn’t just access to social media and internet use (making young Canadians less happy),” said Helliwell, one of the world’s leading experts on happiness.

“It’s how it’s used and what you hear and see on it, and what kind of linkages you get to others through it.”

Jacques Forest is a psychologist and professor at UQAM, a French-language university in Montreal. He’s taken a keen interest in the World Happiness Report for years, and isn’t surprised to see that young Quebecers seem happier than other Canadians.

“It’s not me that says it, it’s the data,” he chuckled.

The 2025 World Happiness Report, released in March, found that when Quebec was extracted from the rest of Canada, the province ranked sixth out of the 147 countries surveyed, while Canada at large was 18th among all age groups.

Countries like Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands, which ranked even higher, all have strong social safety nets, he said, just like Quebec.

Quebec also has the lowest university tuition in North America.

And the province’s affordable daycare system and the employment insurance it offers new parents sends the message that the government supports them, said Forest.

“If people want to be happy, I think they should copy Quebec,” said Forest, who teaches in the university’s department of organization and human resources.

As for whether it’s Quebec’s culture, the population’s joie de vivre might provide an explanation. Forest called it “a far-fetched interpretation.”

“I think that there’s this Quebec effect, or this realization that what we have is precious and that we need to continue doing it,” he said, adding it’s marvellous that in a sea of English-speakers, so many in Quebec have maintained their francophone identity.

But that’s more anecdotal than scientific, he said.

Despite the apparent happiness gap, young people in Quebec have their share of problems.

Close to 45 per cent of college students and just over 40 per cent of university students reported symptoms associated with an anxiety disorder, according to surveys in November of 2024 involving more than 32,000 students. Close to half of all college students surveyed and more than 42 per cent of university students disclosed symptoms of a depressive episode.

“Those results are very concerning,” said Julie Lane, a professor at the University of Sherbrooke’s Department of Education, among those who led the research.

The data also revealed those with English as their first language scored higher on self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, and that more described their mental health as poor.

Nevertheless, the data show many view their mental health positively, Lane highlighted. Nearly 89 per cent described it as “moderate” or “flourishing” — something that’s very encouraging, she said.

Jessica Proulx is in her second year at Université du Quebec à Montreal, where she’s studying to become a high school teacher.

She said the cost of living weighs heavily on her generation.

“I have to work four jobs to make ends meet,” she said. “I don’t have any family members who can help me, so I have to pay for everything myself: my studies, my housing, all of my basic needs.”

The pressure to excel academically is also a major source of anxiety, she said, and resources aren’t always there to help students out, at least where she studies.

But she said she finds ways to cope, ultimately describing herself as a happy person.

“My anxiety is still very much there, of course. But I don’t feel unhappy because of it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 15, 2025.

Miriam Lafontaine, The Canadian Press