WASHINGTON — We all want to be happy, don’t we? Well, if you’re dissatisfied, frustrated or downright miserable, cheer up. There’s apparently a cure for you. Even better, it will materialize automatically. Just sit and wait; the very anticipation of its arrival might improve your spirits. The remedy: getting older.
It’s counterintuitive. In our mind’s eye, old age is to be endured as much as enjoyed. People fear declining health, growing dependence and increasing social isolation. But on average, they also count themselves happier. Consult public opinion surveys, and that’s what you find. Almost 40 percent of Americans 65 and older rated themselves “very happy” compared with only 33 percent of those 35 to 49, report surveys by NORC at the University of Chicago.
This is not just an American quirk. An expanding scholarly research finds similar patterns in many advanced countries. Happiness seems to have a shape — a “U-curve.” Life satisfaction falls “for the first couple of decades of adulthood,” hits bottom in the late 40s or early 50s “and then, until the very last years, [increases] with age,” as Jonathan Rauch writes in the current issue of The Atlantic.
How widespread is the U-curve? Economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick examined survey responses about personal well-being in 80 countries and identified the U-curve in 55, with people’s average happiness low point occurring at age 46. Carol Graham and Milena Nikolova of the Brookings Institution studied polls for 149 countries and found the U-curve in 80, with an average low point at age 50.
What they’ve confirmed is what common sense suggests: There are life-cycle rhythms to contentment and happiness. What’s (perhaps) surprising is that, for many, the best years are the later ones.