The PISA results will be released again later this year. For the first time, in the second week of September instead of December. This is not the most fortunate timing, if you ask me. As always, most discussions will revolve around learning performance. Mathematics. Reading. Science. Rankings. Decline. Hopefully not the latter. We might well see a new wave of opinion pieces.

I am curious myself, of course. One of the things I am certainly more curious about is not just the cognitive scores, which might show a turning point (although I suspect it is still far too early to see the effect of policies from the last two legislative periods, let alone the current policy). But above all, I want to know the evolution of the well-being data. Because that, too, is measured in PISA. Albeit in a limited way.

Recently, a striking analysis of more than 1.3 million young people from PISA 2015, 2018, and 2022 was published. It showed that the life satisfaction of young people worldwide declined between 2015 and 2022. This decline was particularly sharp among girls in high-income countries. For those who follow my blog, this is not really news, but it is pretty hard data that concretely demonstrates this. At the same time, something happened that might feel almost paradoxical: in 2022, young people in lower-middle-income countries reported, on average, higher life satisfaction than their peers in wealthy countries.

That certainly does not automatically mean that young people in poorer countries are “happier.” But it does call into question an old idea that economic development automatically leads to greater well-being.

The study itself is interesting because it remains cautious. The authors point to possible explanations such as social media, online comparison, performance pressure, and COVID effects, but they nowhere claim to have found the definitive cause. That’s important. The sharpest decline occurred precisely between 2018 and 2022, a period overshadowed by the pandemic.

And that is precisely why the next PISA results will be so interesting. PISA 2022 was still in the midst of (the aftermath of) COVID. PISA 2025 could, for the first time, provide a slightly more “normal” post-pandemic picture. If the decline in well-being continues, it will become more difficult to attribute everything primarily to lockdowns and school closures. If a recovery occurs, it suggests that COVID played a much larger role than some currently assume.

What I find particularly fascinating is that this may touch upon something larger. Perhaps we are in the midst of a broader shift in which wealth, digitalisation, and well-being are less naturally intertwined than previously thought. Perhaps social relationships, expectations, and school experiences are changing faster than our classic indicators can keep up.

That doesn’t mean that academic performance becomes unimportant. Of course not, although the same mechanism might be at play there as well. So yes, in September everyone will look at the scores again. I probably will too.