What Went Wrong with the American Dream?

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
American Children ◽  
Deaths Of Despair

This chapter considers a number of indicators relating to the well-being of American children and adults in order to examine the extent to which the American Dream is fulfilling its promise. For children, it considers levels of happiness, academic achievement, mental health, and economic mobility. For adults, it considers happiness, mental health, and life expectancy (including the rise of “deaths of despair”). All these indicators show that the United States is failing radically with respect to both children’s and adults’ well-being. These results are not surprising, the last section of the chapter shows, when we take into account the health of the nation’s families. Neither adults nor children can thrive without sound family ties. Yet indicators show that American families are in bad shape, and in considerably worse shape than families in other countries.

Conclusion:The American Dream Needs a Wealth Agenda

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willliam Elliott ◽  
Melinda Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
American Dream ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
The World ◽  
American Experiment ◽  
Deaths Of Despair ◽  
New Research ◽  
Fair Chance

The American dream is imperiled. Nearly half of Americans who report having once believed that Americans who work hard will get ahead are no longer convinced that is the case. Many doubt that their children’s generation will be better off financially than theirs. Even more alarming, new research suggests that such fears are well-founded. As Americans take stock of their chances to “make it” and find that their realities lag behind their aspirations, the dream withers. Some scholars have even linked recent declines in life expectancy of middle- aged Whites to the hollowing of the American dream, attributing rising mortality rates to “deaths of despair.” Dimming prospects for climbing the economic ladder may threaten the survival of the American experiment. If the verdict was already rendered and the American dream beyond any possible repair, this would be a very different book. Certainly, there are no guarantees that narratives, even broadly shared, endure forever. However, we believe that the American dream is not only salvageable but eminently worth saving. It still holds considerable sway over personal ambitions and collective aspirations in the United States and around the world. In 1931, Adams credited the dream with having “lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores”; today, immigrants and their descendants are the most optimistic about the central premise of the dream: that all who work hard have a fair chance to succeed. Admittedly, the idea that working hard should help people get ahead is not peculiarly “American.” What makes the American Dream uniquely ours is (a) the contention that institutions should aim to create conditions that roughly equalize opportunity and (b) the confidence born of generations’ experiences seeing the dream materialize, albeit unequally. We see the American dream as worth a fight because it defines not only how Americans see themselves and their possible tomorrows but also how they see their nation and the opportunities they believe that nation should extend.

scholarly journals Optimal Well-Being After Major Depression

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rottenberg ◽  
Andrew R. Devendorf ◽  
Vanessa Panaite ◽  
David J. Disabato ◽  
Todd B. Kashdan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Major Depression ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Burden ◽  
Leverage Points ◽  
Midlife Development

Can people achieve optimal well-being and thrive after major depression? Contemporary epidemiology dismisses this possibility, viewing depression as a recurrent, burdensome condition with a bleak prognosis. To estimate the prevalence of thriving after depression in United States adults, we used data from the Midlife Development in the United States study. To count as thriving after depression, a person had to exhibit no evidence of major depression and had to exceed cutoffs across nine facets of psychological well-being that characterize the top 25% of U.S. nondepressed adults. Overall, nearly 10% of adults with study-documented depression were thriving 10 years later. The phenomenon of thriving after depression has implications for how the prognosis of depression is conceptualized and for how mental health professionals communicate with patients. Knowing what makes thriving outcomes possible offers new leverage points to help reduce the global burden of depression.

scholarly journals Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changwon Son ◽  
Sudeep Hegde ◽  
Alec Smith ◽  
Xiaomei Wang ◽  
Farzan Sasangohar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
College Students ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Positive Coping ◽  
Negative Impacts

BACKGROUND Student mental health in higher education has been an increasing concern. The COVID-19 pandemic situation has brought this vulnerable population into renewed focus. OBJECTIVE Our study aims to conduct a timely assessment of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of college students. METHODS We conducted interview surveys with 195 students at a large public university in the United States to understand the effects of the pandemic on their mental health and well-being. The data were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative methods. RESULTS Of the 195 students, 138 (71%) indicated increased stress and anxiety due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Multiple stressors were identified that contributed to the increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts among students. These included fear and worry about their own health and of their loved ones (177/195, 91% reported negative impacts of the pandemic), difficulty in concentrating (173/195, 89%), disruptions to sleeping patterns (168/195, 86%), decreased social interactions due to physical distancing (167/195, 86%), and increased concerns on academic performance (159/195, 82%). To cope with stress and anxiety, participants have sought support from others and helped themselves by adopting either negative or positive coping mechanisms. CONCLUSIONS Due to the long-lasting pandemic situation and onerous measures such as lockdown and stay-at-home orders, the COVID-19 pandemic brings negative impacts on higher education. The findings of our study highlight the urgent need to develop interventions and preventive strategies to address the mental health of college students.

Who Believes in the American Dream?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Graham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Future Success ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter goes on to ask who still believes in the American Dream. It begins with a review of what we know about the relationship between inequality, well-being, and attitudes about future mobility. It summarizes what we know from survey data on attitudes about inequality and opportunity in the United States, and then places those attitudes in the context of those in other countries and regions, based on new data and analysis with a focus on individuals' beliefs in the role of hard work in future success. Evidence suggests that the American Dream is very unevenly shared across socioeconomic cohorts. The poor and the rich in the United States lead very different lives, with the former having a much harder time looking beyond day-to-day struggles and associated high levels of stress, while the latter is able to pursue much better futures for themselves and their children, with the gaps between the two likely to increase even more in the future.

Clarifying the Relationship Between Parenthood and Depression

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranae J. Evenson ◽  
Robin W. Simon
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Symptoms Of Depression ◽  
Role Involvement ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Differences

Unlike other major adult social roles in the United States, parenthood does not appear to confer a mental health advantage for individuals. However, while research has examined parental status differences in emotional well-being, relatively little is known about variations in emotional distress among parents. In this article, we clarify the relationship between parenthood and current symptoms of depression using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. The analyses provide support for our first hypothesis: Parenthood is not associated with enhanced mental health since there is no type of parent who reports less depression than nonparents. We also find support for our second hypothesis: Certain types of parenthood are associated with more depression than others. Additionally, although we find marital status differences in symptoms among parents, there are no gender differences in the association between parenthood and depression. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing theoretical debates about the advantages of social role involvement for mental health as well as the meaning of contemporary parenthood in the United States.

Dollars and Lipstick: The United States Through the Eyes of African Women

Africa ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvette Djachechi Monga
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Women ◽  
African Countries ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
The Future ◽  
American Children ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractIn their quest for material well-being Cameroonian women see the United States as a country of virtually boundless opportunities. It is Eldorado, offering chances of earning money by selling cosmetics that are guaranteed not to have been tampered with. It is the new frontier, the Far West, where mothers send their children to study in the hope that a job-oriented education will make it easier for them to return home. It is the future, prefigured in the New York skyscrapers; Cameroonian mothers dream of bringing forth American children, and so giving tham a better chance of absorbing this world of the future. When the American dream is not accessible, the United States still offers an imaginary space where women reinvent the conditions of their existence by adopting some of the signs of American culture in their everyday life in the tropics. The use of lipstick thus appears as the symbol of a world-culture behind which hovers the giant image of the United States. The experiences of Cameroonian women can be extended to women in other African countries and, beyond, to the men of Africa, also suffering the precariousness of the present, faced with the same challenges of the future and engaged in the same quest for material well-being.

Work Time Matters for Mental Health: A Gender Analysis of Paid and Unpaid Labor in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 048661342110355
Author(s):  
Chiara Piovani ◽  
Nursel Aydiner-Avsar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Work Time ◽  
Paid Labor ◽  
The Relationship

Based on Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) survey data for 2013–14, this paper examines the association between work time (inclusive of both paid and unpaid work time) and the mental health outcomes of men and women in the United States, controlling for economic and social buffers, education, and demographic factors. In the United States, even though women constitute close to half of the paid labor force, they still perform the lion’s share of unpaid work. The findings indicate that total work time is positively related with emotional distress for women, while there is no statistically significant relationship for men. For women, the relationship between work time and mental health is primarily driven by unpaid work rather than paid work. Evaluating the relationship between mental health and both productive and reproductive work is critical to develop effective public policies toward gender equity and social well-being. JEL classification: I14, J16, J01

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