One in two young people have missed work in the last year because of stress – a new global survey by Ipsos

The fifth edition of the Ipsos World Mental Health Day report is a 31-country study looking at the people’s perceptions of mental health and how they think their healthcare systems treat mental health.

Key UK findings include:

• Six in ten (60%) Britons say they often think about their mental health. 
• Over half (59%) of Britons say that they have felt stressed to the point where it had an impact on their daily life. 
• 54% say that physical health is treated as more important than mental health by the healthcare system in the UK. This is 13pp higher than the global average. 
• Nearly eight in ten (79%) Britons believe that mental and physical health are equally important. 
• 36% of Britons say that they felt stressed once or several times to the point where they could not go to work for a period of time. Great Britain ranks 8th out of the 31 countries surveyed for this. 
• Over half (56%) of Gen Z women have needed to take time off work due to stress, versus 29% of Gen Z men.

Key global findings include:

• Younger generations missing work due to stress. One in two of Gen Z (54%) and Millennials (47%) say they have felt stressed to the point that they could not go to work during the past year.
• Gen Z women struggling more than their male peers. 40% say in the last year there have been several times where they have felt depressed to the point that they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for a couple of weeks or more. 29% of Gen Z men say the same.
• Moreover, most people say stress has affected their daily life.  Almost two-thirds (62%) on average across 31 countries, say they have felt stressed to the point where it had an impact on their daily life at least once. Levels of reported stress range from a high of 76% in Türkiye to a low of 44% in Japan. Overall, a slightly higher proportion of women (66%) say they have felt stressed than men (58%). In our Health Service Report mental health is seen as the biggest health issue.
• Health of mind and body seen as equal. Just over three in four (76%, global country average) say mental and physical health are equally important, with a majority in all 31 countries saying this is the case. While mind and body are seen as equal people are more likely to say they often think about their physical (72%) than their mental wellbeing (60%).
• Healthcare systems prioritise physical issues. The public believe the emphasis by healthcare professionals is often still on the body. On average across the 31 countries, 41% say physical health is treated as more important than mental health by their country’s current healthcare system, 13% say mental health is treated as more important and 31% say both are treated equally.

Technical note

Ipsos interviewed 24,668 people online in the following countries between July 26 and August 9, 2024. Quotas were set to ensure representativeness and data have been weighted to the known population profile of each country. The sample consists of approximately 1,500 individuals each in Germany and Brazil, and 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and the U.S., and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and Türkiye. The sample in India consists of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.