Why are the old happier?

It's well known that happiness is U-shaped in age (pdf): it troughs around our early 40s.
But why do we cheer up after then, even though our health starts to go? This new paper has some answers, and they're not terrribly encouraging:
1. Older people no longer suffer from unemployment, or the threat thereof. And joblessness is disastrous for well-being.
2. Divorce and widowhood hurt younger people more. This is partly because they are unexpected when one is young. It's also because people adapt to their circumstances, so the pain of divorce fades over time. When you're 41, your divorce at age 40 hurts. But by the age of 6o, you're over it.
3. Older people are more religious, and religion is a big source of happiness. I'm not clear, however, whether this is an age or cohort effect. If it's the case that people born in the 1930s are more religious than those born in the 60s, this is no comfort to us 40-something atheists*. But if it's the case that we tend to find God as we get older, perhaps it is.
* Not that we are unhappy, at least today.

Comments

[dearieme]

What the old know is that All Is Vanity. Even us Godless ones.

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

3 What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?

4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

8 All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after

[chris y]

The knowledge that I, and most of the people I care about, will probably be dead before the full consequenses of the political, economic, military and ecological irresponsibility of the last ten years finally come home to roost doesn't make me happy, but I have to admit it's a considerable relief. If I had children I would be incoherently frightened on a level that intellectual awareness of what's going to happen to younger people I'm less invested in cannot attain, try as I may. I admit this doesn't make me a very good person.

[gaddeswarup]

On a recent trip to India, I met many people in the sixties and seventies (my age group. Here in Australia I spend my time mostly with my family and do not meet many old people). I found that the old are rigid, boring and seem to think that they hold the key to right living just because they survived so long.

[smally]

Look* at how steeply happiness is increasing with age at around retirement.
Could it be that retirees get happy because they have dumped the bosses off their backs?

*http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/4787558.stm

[moncler coats]

Good stuff as per usual, thanks. I do hope this kind of thing gets more exposure.