Ruminations

Prepare Yourself: Unhappiness at Age Half-Century

"Unhappiness is hill-shaped in age. There is an unhappiness curve."
"[These new papers indicate a] surprising pattern in the data in 132 countries & numerous surveys & millions of people runs contrary to claims of some and earlier psychology literature that there is no such pattern."
"The happiness curve is found in 132 countries. No myth. It’s true for people who are single. It’s true for people who have got children, who haven’t got children. For men, it’s true for women."
"It looks like something that's naturally occurring. You can get it in great apes. The results imply that human well-being’s curved shape is not uniquely human and that, although it may be partly explained by aspects of human life and society, its origins may lie partly in the biology we share with great apes."
"There is growing evidence from around the world that prime-age adults are struggling, and especially so if they have low levels of education. This is particularly apparent in the United States that has seen a rapid rise in deaths of despair, principally down to drug poisonings and suicide."
"It's about isolation, loneliness, lack of help and lack of community. We need to recognize that this is something real and then help people to get through it."
"If you’re in a midlife crisis, just understand that lots of other people are as well. The other one is don’t be alone. It says that in the data that sharing things, dining with your neighbours, talking to your family, spending time with your family, letting people come and help you because eventually it will get better."
David Blanchflower, professor of economics, Dartmouth College

MarketWatch photo illustration/Getty Images

In a newly published study in the National Bureau of Economic Research former Bank of England policy maker David Blanchflower identifies the age of 47.2 as the climax of unhappiness for people in the developed world. A very similar index applies to people in developing nations; they are slightly behind by one point, one year, with age 48.2 the time of maturity of least happiness. Data based on close to ten million people from 40 countries in Europe and the United States were used by this researcher for one of his studies to examine the relationship between unhappiness and age.

"You're past your prime, you're past your peak. You're on the downward slope of the physical side of things now."
"It's like the worst of both worlds [neither the fun of youth nor the security of old age]."
"Children don't have huge mortgages or jobs to hold down. You're provided for; you're taken care of. You're with your family all the time, so you don't have the loneliness and anxiety and isolation [that arrive in later years]."
"[And then age tends to arrive with increased financial security]. You have your house, your savings, your retirement plans, your family is grown up and self-sufficient."
"People have a lot less to look forward to now -- climate problems, economic problems, political problems."
"There will be a lot of very substantial cultural and sociological elements that drives a population's happiness in either direction."
Dean Burnett, British neuroscientist, author: The Happy Brain: The Science of Where Happiness Comes From and Why

According to a new study, people in developed countries reach their peak misery at the age of 47.

Mr. Blanchflower identified 15 different indications of unhappiness which include despair, anxiety, loneliness, sadness, strain, depression and bad nerves, phobias and panic, being downhearted, loss of confidence, tension and 'thinking of yourself as a worthless person'. Two questions were also used in the index of unhappiness: was it difficult to feel hopeful about the future of the world; and was life in one's own country becoming worse? Whatever the criteria and response they seemed to add up to generalized unhappiness around age 50.

Mr. Blanchflower, himself 67 years of age, looked into age and subjective well-being in 132 countries in a separate paper titled 'Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere?'. Taking education, marital and workforce status into account, he discovered that whether rich or poor, the outcomes were almost identical, merely a one-year differential between peak age when people are the least happy. Whether the identified median age was high or not, or whether people lived in countries with higher life expectancies, the curve's trajectory remained unchanged.

“The great sadness” of actor Ben Affleck, 47 years old. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty

The most vulnerable people faced with this midlife crisis are being hit hard, he pointed out, even as marriage and religion are declining in many areas of the world. In the United Kingdom, a developed and wealthy country, wages are 4-1/2 percent below their 2008 position. With depression increasing among populations, the depth of general despair "looks to be disastrous" pointed out Mr. Blanchflower who had written Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?

Dr. Burnett, the British neuroscientist, pointed out that the brain is not a static organ, it adapts to whatever conditions appear before it. So the discovery that happiness becomes altered over long periods of time, or that a U-shaped curve in human mental states exists does not particularly present as a novel idea. And the good news is that as one grows into senior years matters have a tendency to improve, the happiness or satisfaction-with-life factor climbs upward....