It’s official — 32 per cent of British women are sad. Here’s why

Here’s some unhappy news: British women are sadder and more stressed than their European counterparts. Notice I said unhappy news, not shocking, because the results of the latest global survey really shouldn’t come as a surprise.

The annual study of almost 80,000 women from 143 countries concluded that “negative emotions” — worry, stress and anger — have risen among UK women since 2020, while falling across Europe. Researchers found that 32 per cent of British women reported feeling sadness the previous day (a rise from 21 per cent three years ago), compared with 26 per cent in EU countries. Some 39 per cent of British women reported stress, compared with an EU average of 34 per cent.

Among European countries, the UK came 22nd out of 31 for emotional health, with women in Hungary, Poland, Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian nations all less sad and stressed.

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What does surprise me is that it’s not worse. Every woman I know feels this way to some extent — it’s why the wellbeing industry, geared towards self-care, has exploded and why podcasts such as Women Are Mad, dealing with female anger, are booming.

The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, which conducts the survey, blames the UK’s comparative lack of progress when it comes to women’s healthcare for our misery. For many, myself included, that rings true. If you’ve got a problem, it can be tough to feel you’re being taken seriously. A friend is struggling to get effective antibiotics from her GP a month after contracting a UTI, while my endometriosis and adenomyosis took the best part of 20 years to diagnose. The symptoms of heart attacks and brain tumours are routinely taken less seriously in women than men, and are often misdiagnosed.

But that can’t be the whole story. Because if we’re talking about stress and sadness, a huge chunk has to relate to our work and relationships — the very fabric of our lives and what makes them so bloody hard at times.

“There is the constant undercurrent of stress for women at work,” says Mary Ann Sieghart, author of The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men and What We Can Do About It. “On the one hand people assume we’re less competent than we are and are surprised at our abilities more than with men. But on the other hand they don’t like women who self-promote in the way that men do; they turn against us because they think we’re ‘big-headed’.

“When you add to that the fact that we’re much more likely to be interrupted, have our expertise challenged and to be ignored when we make suggestions in meetings, it’s no wonder we feel more stressed. Not to mention that the mental load of women being assumed to carry the responsibility for children and older parents is also exhausting because you’re constantly worrying.”

The burden is real. New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that women spend an hour a day more than men doing unpaid work such as cooking, cleaning and caring. Never mind that women in Britain are also working longer hours in their jobs than they did before Covid, while men are doing less per week.

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Not that there’s much accessible childcare to lighten the load — one area in which Britain noticeably lags behind its European counterparts. The numbers are enough to make anyone feel sad. The average cost of full-time childcare for under-2s in the UK is £263 a week, the third most expensive in the world. Compare that with the Nordic nations and the picture is, frankly, embarrassing: in Denmark parents receive a 75 per cent government subsidy; in Sweden childcare is capped at 3 per cent of annual income; in Norway kindergartens can’t charge more than £150 a month. In the UK, by contrast, 1 in 10 women have quit their job because of childcare pressures.

Oh, and unlike here, where men are entitled to two weeks of statutory paternity leave, the Scandis also have leave sorted for the mother and the father — Sweden introduced its policy 50 years ago and it’s considered taboo for dads not to take the full 240 paid days.

“My daughter lives in Denmark and she was amazed by the cultural difference,” Sieghart says. “Fathers are just as expected as mothers are to pick up their kids from school — it’s almost frowned upon if they don’t.”

Then there’s the small matter of our love lives. The psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber thinks we’ve made good progress when it comes to recognising “red flags” and problems within our relationships, but that we aren’t equipped to deal with them — too often we are prescribed antidepressants instead of being helped to tackle the root causes.

“There’s also this huge pressure now to get respect from a partner and have healthy relationships,” she says. “It means there’s so much shame around being in a difficult or dysfunctional relationship, or feeling time is running out if you’re single.”

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And while it’s easy enough to pick up the phone and get a prescription, that doesn’t deal with the misery and anger so many women feel deep down.

“The issue that comes up in therapy is just what to do with rage — rage towards partners, family, friends and neighbours,” she says. “Women really don’t know what to do with it and men really don’t like seeing it. It’s thought of as almost grotesque. So where is it meant to come out? I think that, over time, resentment just builds from this rage hangover. And even if you go through the motions of self-care, I think when women are stressed those activities aren’t necessarily [helpful].”

So will this bleak picture look any better for British women next year? Are we due some happier news? I suppose it depends how many of us move to Scandinavia. Who’s with me?