It is a fact that people are working longer and longer hours these days. A survey was done in Australia and a high percentage of people worked 40 hours or more a week. 20 years ago, I don't think people worked such long hours. The other thing is that mental illness is becoming more acceptable. There has been a lot of research and media attention for mental illness. The internet has also had a huge impact on the rate of diagnosis and acceptance of mental illness. Practically every home has a computer nowadays. 20 years ago not many people had computers or had ever used the internet.

I think the general views of society are changing in regards to mental illness. I know that there are differences in how the older generations still react to mental illness. When I was depressed, my step mother (a 58 year old) had the idea that I could just snap out of it if I just got up and did things. She had the idea that life was just hard for everyone and that's just how it is, grin and bear it. I believe that idea would have been much more common 20 years ago than it is now, which means that a lot of people would have done just that - made out everything was fine and lived unhappy lives. Nowadays there are education campaigns about depression to let people know that it is more serious than just being unhappy and that people can't just snap out of it. Gradually it is changing society's ideas on depression.

As for the third world countries - we don't really know what sorts of mental health issues they have, because they just don't have the facilities or support for them. Also, when it's a struggle to get basic human needs, emotional needs tend to get put aside as less important. I'm certain that western countries overall have a higher level of happiness than third world countries. Remember just because people don't speak about being unhappy doesn't really mean they are happy. There is a lot of oppression and suffering in third world countries. People don't have the right of freedom of speech like we do in western countries.