It’s often said that “confidence is key,” yet many teenage girls lack this vital asset. A decreased confidence can negatively impact academics, emotions, and self-worth.
Mental health among teenage girls has declined dramatically in recent years. In 2011, a CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 36% of teenage girls reported persistently feeling sad or hopeless. In 2021, this became 57% of teenage girls. However, these alarming numbers don’t affect every girl equally.
In April 2025, through a platform called Teen Voice, I sent a survey to 1,000 randomly selected teenage girls across the US, asking a range of questions about their general well-being, exercise habits, sleep patterns, confidence, family life, and other factors.
My results revealed several patterns. Girls from lower-income households reported higher self-doubt, emotional instability, and academic discouragement than their peers from middle and higher-income families.
But where did this gap come from?
According to research, girls from lower-income backgrounds are often more likely to face challenges outside the classroom that impact their academic performance. For example, they tend to have less access to tutors, stable internet, or quiet environments to study. Their families may face housing instability or financial stress that inevitably permeates their daily lives. These teenage girls are more likely to work part-time jobs and take on additional family responsibilities, which reduces the available time and energy that would otherwise be focused on school.
Unfortunately, research shows that these pressures tend to compound over time. It’s often an unforgiving cycle where familial financial stress contributes to elevated personal stress, which can chip away at self-esteem and impact academic performance. In certain cases, academic difficulties can reinforce feelings of self-doubt and failure… and so the loop continues.
In my survey, girls who identified their families as low-income or lower-middle class were twice as likely to rate their academic confidence below 50%. These same girls also scored lower on emotional wellness, such as general happiness levels, and higher on daily stress levels. They also reported higher struggles with self-identity and body-image issues. Furthermore, many of them reported feeling uncomfortable in school and having to ask for help from teachers or school counselors.
In basic terms, girls from lower-income families are feeling less secure all around — academically, emotionally, and physically.
As the nation continues to confront an ongoing mental health crisis among teenage girls, these findings suggest that confidence, while often seen as a personal trait, may be deeply influenced by economic factors. As teenage girls across income levels continue to face rising mental health challenges, understanding how poverty shapes confidence remains an essential part of addressing the broader teenage mental health emergency.
