During the past decade or so, it has become commonplace in the UK for celebrities to speak out about their mental health difficulties – everyone from Prince Harry to the most obscure reality TV star has come forward to testify to their struggles with one or other mental disorders.
There is a widespread belief that this is a good thing, that it helps destigmatise mental illness and foster an atmosphere of greater understanding. Certainly, if I think back to growing up in the 1960s and 70s, when people spoke about “mental cases” who should be shipped off to the “loony bin”, a sober appreciation of mental disability was long overdue.
But as society has learned a whole new language of neurodiversity and psychological disorders – bipolarity, ADHD, OCD, autism, anxiety and depression – something quite noticeable is happening: more people are seeking diagnosis for mental illness, particularly since the pandemic.
Whether or not greater awareness leads to greater ill health is not easy to establish, but what is known is that in 2002, 3.9 million working-age people in the UK were entitled to a disability benefit (for physical or mental disability) and that figure is now 6.9 million and rising: more than 10% of the population claims it. What’s more, mental disability has accounted for 37% of claims since 2019. Okay, that leaves 63% as physical disability claims, and that’s another health crisis in itself, but mental ill health is growing as a percentage of disability.
Britain, it seems, is bad for your mental health. Bad mental health in turn is bad for the economy: first, because it renders increasing numbers unable to work, and second, because the government – ie, the taxpayer – has to finance a spiralling bill for supporting those whose mental disability (which could include something as ill-defined as ADHD) prevents their working.
Nor is it just the working-aged population that’s affected. The cost of educating children with special needs rose from £7 billion a year in 2015 to £12 billion (NZ$27 billion) last year as greater numbers of parents sought mental health diagnoses for their children and the expensive educational support that comes with it.
The government is well aware that with a shrinking economy and a greater commitment to defence spending, the growth in disability payments is not financially sustainable. So late last month, it tried to introduce legislation to restrict eligibility and payments. But a backbench revolt led to a u-turn in policy that has left its spending plans in tatters.
If the mark of a civilised society is how well it treats its less fortunate members, then perhaps the sign of a society in jeopardy is when it relies on a dwindling working population to fund an ever-expanding non-working one. Already in the UK the number of pensioners is in danger of outstripping workers, and younger generations have not only been saddled with future responsibility for the ballooning national debt, but they also face the unlikelihood of buying their own homes or finding secure employment.
Caught between the encroachment of AI (which is estimated to have eaten up a third of graduate starter jobs) and the debt left by Boomers who lived beyond their means, it’s no wonder Millennials and Zoomers (Generation Z) are succumbing to these pressures and giving voice to their mental stress.
That they have learned to articulate it without embarrassment or shame is in the end small compensation for feeling it in the first place. Britain isn’t alone in suffering from this particular problem, but it does present one of the unhealthiest cases. The nation once famed for its stiff upper lip now looks a little too much like a quivering wreck.
Andrew Anthony is an Observer writer and is married to a New Zealander.
