Happiness among girls and young women has hit its lowest level since 2009, according to “devastating” polling for Girlguiding, which shows that nine out of 10 seven to 21-year-olds are worried or anxious.
In figures that Angela Salt, the UK movement’s chief executive, said showed “girls and young women have been let down”, only 17% aged seven to 21 now feel very happy compared with 40% in 2009.
The sharpest drop in happiness has been among seven to 10-year-olds. Only 28% say they are happy compared with well over half in 2009. There has also been a big rise in anger among 11 to 21-year-olds that “adults have damaged the environment” and their generation will “have to deal with it”.
One girl told the researchers: “If I am honest, I am scared our world will fall into ruins and we won’t be able to do anything about it.”
There were signs of hope, though. More girls are speaking out and campaigning on issues they care about – protest marching is up and more feel part of their communities.
But in the survey of 2,614 girls and young women, many described how negative feelings about body image, problems online and shrinking aspirations were eroding their wellbeing.
“They’re facing persistent issues that aren’t going away and it’s having a negative impact on their lives,” said Salt. “Girls are feeling pressures and experiencing challenges from all angles, from harm online, to appearance and sexual harassment. Not only are girls worried about their futures and the increased cost of living, but they’re experiencing unrealistic pressures and negative behaviours because they’re girls.”
Despite multiple campaigns to change the way female body image is depicted, two-thirds of 11 to 21-year-olds “sometimes feel ashamed of the way I look because I’m not like girls and women in the media” – up from half five years ago.
In several worrying findings suggesting backsliding on gender equality, the number of girls and women who think they are mostly given the same opportunities to do things as boys and men of the same age has fallen since 2009. Just one in four girls believe that sexist comments are dealt with seriously at school and 44% of 11 to 21-year-olds said they had been shouted or whistled at on the way to and from school.
The Girlguiding charity is calling for urgent government action to reverse the decline in wellbeing. It wants:
Schools to train all young people in consent in sexual relationships.
Age verification controls so children cannot access harmful content online.
Media literacy lessons to tackle body-image related harms.
A ban on showing weight loss and appearance-related adverts to under-18s.
Altered images in social media and online advertising to be labelled.
Megan, 21, a Girlguiding advocate, said the survey results made her feel “quite sad” but she was not surprised. “The pressures on girls, particularly in terms of appearance, online harms and sexual harassment, felt particularly resonant as I have watched multiple members in my own Girlguiding units struggle with these issues,” she said.
Salt added: “It’s devastating to hear that girls’ happiness has steadily declined over the last 15 years.”
Online bullying – such as receiving mean comments or trolling – of the youngest group has almost doubled in the last seven years, to one in four girls. One in five said people had made comments about their bodies online – more than doubling since 2016.
Almost one-fifth of girls aged seven to 10 reported that comments were made to them about their body online (19%), which has more than doubled from 8% in 2016.
In 2009, 72% of seven to 21-year-olds said they were happy with how they looked but that has slumped to 59% in 2023 and a third of girls said they would consider plastic surgery, an increase over the last five years.
ChildLine, the charity which runs the 0800 1111 helpline, said the results “reinforce how essential the upcoming online safety bill will be in ensuring girls can use social media platforms without the fear of suffering sexism and abuse.”
“The findings from this survey are sobering and echo the concerns that our trained ChildLine counsellors hear on a daily basis,” said Kieran Lyons, service head.