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March 03, 2007

Happiness and age

Here's some good news for us 40-somethings - on average, we'll get happier from now on. A new paper from David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald (draft pdf here) shows that well-being is U-shaped in age. People get unhappier between the ages of 20 and 45 - by the equivalent of one-third the effect of losing one's job - but happier thereafter.
This finding is not a new one. But until recently, it's not been robust. There's been a suspicion that the U-shape is not due to age, but to cohort effects; maybe people born in the 60s are just sadder than those born earlier or later. If this were the case, we children of the 60s would stay miserable as we age.
But it ain't. Oswald and Blanchflower show that the U-shape exists even controlling for cohort effects.
Controling for income, they estimate that subjective well-being troughs at 49.5 year of age for the average American man and 44.1 for the average European man (It's 45.2 and 42.6 for women).
The U shape holds for single as well as married people, so it doesn't come from getting grandchildren or from a happy marriage alone. And it exists in the UK alone as well (pdf).
What's great about this is that Oswald and Blanchflower don't control for health, so we get happier past our mid-40s even though our health often deteriorates and we start to ache in the places we used to wish we could play.
Why is this? The depressing possibility is that there's a selection effect: sad people die younger, so average happiness rise with age.
A more likely possibility is that we adapt to our circumstances, and so no longer feel the pang of unfulfilled ambition or unrequited love.
But is this an unmitigated gain?

March 03, 2007 in Psychology |

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Comments

Sam

The obvious answer is that before age 20, one is a child, with, on average, few or no worries, as one's parents take care of most things. Yes, you might have left home and got a job, but you're likely to be living in a single room and your biggest worry is deciding which pub to drink in.

Between 20 and 45, people have all the stresses - providing for a family, finding somewhere for the family to live, raising children, getting promoted at work and so on.

After 45 or 50, the kids are more or less grown up and ready to take responsibility for themselves. You may not yet be at the peak of your career, but it should be clear what your prospects are.

Posted by: Sam | March 03, 2007 at 05:04 PM

bird dog

Who cares?
Is "happiness" the meaning/purpose of life?
I doubt it. We aren't dogs, are we?

Posted by: bird dog | March 03, 2007 at 06:53 PM

Shuggy

"Why is this? The depressing possibility is that there's a selection effect: sad people die younger, so average happiness rise with age."

Nah. In my own case, adolescence - the stage of development where consciousness makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin - lasted about 15 years or so. 30-40 felt quite comfortable in said skin and decided to go mental for a decade to celebrate. Dreaded turning forty but when it arrived and people ask you how you feel? Lucky to be here, lucky is what I am. So I'm reasonably happy. Anything else is a bonus.

Posted by: Shuggy | March 03, 2007 at 07:23 PM

jameshigham

That's so, Chris. The U shape though is really an S because after a certain upturn, it inevitably goes down again - age related illnesses etc.

Posted by: jameshigham | March 04, 2007 at 10:14 AM

Terri

At 50-something I'm more relaxed about life now than I've ever been. I think it's down to several things. Surviving disasters, near-death and near-bankruptcy kind of events has taught me that cliches like 'stuff happens' 'tomorrow's another day' 'you can't please everyone' etc. are true. Things really do work out in the end...

I remind people of their mum, which gives me a head-start in tricky situations - only yesterday, some git in a car he could barely control nearly took the wing of my car off. We both rolled down our windows for a shout, but when I opened hostilities with "have you been drinking?" he dropped his eyes and muttered an apology. Result.

I can be completely invisible, so it doesn't matter if I nip up to the supermarket wearing odd socks and an abysmal old purple fleece.

I've decided that words like 'grown-up' 'ambition' and 'success' are delusions - or at least, they've passed me by, and it really doesn't matter. I like what Shuggy says about feeling lucky. Yup. If we were still living in the Stone Age, I'd be well past my life expectancy by now.

Posted by: Terri | March 05, 2007 at 12:46 AM

knzn

Another possibility is that there are just neuroendocrine changes that happen with age and make people feel more satisfied with their lives.

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