ANALYSIS REALITY CHECKdeveloping countries, happiness was lowest at 48.2
years old; in developed countries it was 47.2.
“No ifs, no buts, wellbeing is U-shaped in age,”
writes Blanchflower. “I found it in Europe, Asia,
North and South America, in Australasia and Africa
... There were very few countries I did not find it for,
and that happened mostly where there were small
samples or I had no data.”
Previous studies have found this happiness curve,
too. Some of the best evidence comes from
longitudinal studies, which track the same group of
people over a number of years. For example, a 2015
study led by health economist Dr Terence Cheng,
looked at individual changes in wellbeing in
longitudinal data from Britain, Australia and
Germany, finding “powerful support for a U-shape”.
However, some experts question whether the curve
is a true phenomenon, or a result of the data analysis.
One possibility, says Dr Dean Burnett – author of The
Happy Brain and honorary research associate at
Cardiff University’s School of Psychology – is that
the curve at least partly results from unhappier
people dying younger, which would skew the data
towards higher happiness for the older ages. That
said, there are reasons why happiness might follow
GET T Y IMAGESthis trajectory when averaged over a population.
“Around the late 40s and early 50s is a time when
many people have less autonomy and less financial
security,” he says. “When you’re younger, you’re not
tied down with responsibilities, and there are more
possibilities. In midlife, people might have mortgages
to pay and adolescent children to look after. Your
body might be starting to get aches and pains, and
there’s less novelty in life. All of the things you were
looking forward to when you were younger have
either happened, or are looking less likely to happen.”
So why might happiness increase in later life?
“When you’re older, autonomy usually increases,”
says Burnett. “Your children are grown up, you have
less responsibility, you might be retired – you have
more control over your life again. You’ve also had
some time to make peace with any challenges that
you began to encounter in your 40s and 50s.”
Another benefit of being older, says Burnett, is that
you’ve built up life experience, and that can help you
to deal better with any negative life events. “You also
become more grateful for the things that you do
have,” he adds. “You come to terms with the things
you aren’t going to get, and can concentrate on other
things, such as friendships or hobbies.”
The studies that have found the happiness curve
include some broad definitions of happiness. In the
Blanchflower analysis, for example, the UK data
came from the Annual Population Survey, which
asks participants to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10: “Overall,
how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?” and
“How happy did you feel yesterday?”.
Individual differences will vary greatly from the
statistical average, and everyone will have their own
personal happiness trajectory. So to what extent can
we affect our own happiness? “We have a lot more
control than we realise,” says Burnett. “We have the
autonomy to do things and make decisions that’ll
improve our wellbeing. But we also don’t realise how
much of our happiness is influenced by others.” He
says that a lot of the things that we think will make
us happy – like marriage or a particular job – come
from our culture, not from any real need.
Burnett recommends being aware of this when
setting goals for the future. “How many of these are
things that you actually want, and how many are
things that you feel you should want?” he says.
Ultimately, it seems that people can be unhappy at
any age. But they can be happy at any age, too. “There
are plenty of people in their late 40s who are having
the time of their life,” says Burnett.ABOVE People in their
late 40s have a lot on their
plate, like mortgages to
pay and children to bring
up. Plus, niggling aches and
pains may set inby JA MES LLOY D
James is sta writer at BBC Science Focus.“ ere are plenty
of people in their
late 40s who are
having the time
of their life”