More than just a survey: Young people are sharing their thoughts about how Nottingham is reflecting why the UK is struggling with ‘human flourishing’.
Young adults in Nottingham have expressed their agreement with the UK’s recent ranking of 20 out of 22 countries in a survey that determines human life satisfaction.
The survey consists of twelve questions that cover six different categories: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, material and financial stability.
These questions are asked to 200,000 people across the 22 countries that span across six of the continents around the world.
With only Turkey and Japan scoring lower than the UK, other countries all showed aspects of higher human flourishing and life satisfaction than Britain.
This survey has caused questions to arise surrounding the overall happiness of the UK and how satisfied the people are that live here.
People like Rosie Otton believe that Nottingham is one of the places in the UK that reflects why the country would be ranked so low in such categories.
From coming to Nottingham during the end stages of the pandemic in 2021, to living here as a student for a further four years, Rosie believed that the area is somewhere that young people are struggling to flourish due to still trying to recover from these previous years.
She said: “I definitely think the COVID pandemic affected young people more than everyone thinks.
“As a 20-year-old in 2021, being isolated with limited socialisation and time outdoors was really hard to deal with, especially on top of every day mental health issues that I was already going through.
“My relationships with friends were harder and I didn’t have much motivation to stay positive because life wasn’t as enjoyable.”
As a student who decided to stay after graduating, now doing a masters degree in heritage and spending her fourth year here, it seems surprising that Rosie would include Nottingham in the UK’s low results.
She defended her opinion by explaining why she decided to stay and the problems she is still facing.
She said: “I’ve always wanted to get my masters degree and after already establishing friendships here it felt counterproductive to move somewhere new where I’d probably face similar issues.
“Nottingham is very student and young person based and yet I think a lot of people would agree that they still don’t have a super positive outlook on this so called life satisfaction.
“Rent and cost of living prices are through the roof right now and students are pretty much scraping by, especially those that are financially independent from their parents like me.”
Rosie’s outlook on Nottingham life, specifically on and following the pandemic, showed that through a combination of financial, mental and social aspects, the East Midlands city mirrors the rest of the UK and why it ranked so low.
Another young adult from Nottingham, Louise Chapman, gave her opinion on why Nottingham and other areas of the UK may have contributed to this low ranking.
She said: “I’ve never heard of the human flourishing survey but if it includes anything to do with mental health then I’m not surprised the UK scored so low.
“I’ve had my ups and downs when it comes to mental health and I never feel like I ever got the support I really needed.
“I have lived in Nottingham for a number of years and have always felt like there isn’t a massive amount to do for younger people or adults that doesn’t involve drinking which then forces people to feel like that’s something they then have to do to have fun.”
These opinions of Nottingham’s student lifestyle and mental health system reflects the survey results for the whole of the UK and leads to a better understanding as to why the ranking was so low.
The views on lifestyle and society being such an important factor is reflected in the results of countries such as Indonesia, who are not the wealthiest country out of the list but scored second out of 22 due to their strong sense of social community and relationships.
Find out more about the Human Flourishing Survey here.
