http://www.economist.com/node/17722567?Story_ID=17722567 > > >Good news for a lot of us!!! > > > > >V 'Naresh' Narasimhan > >>> >>> The U-bend of life >>>Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older >>>Age and happiness >>> >>>ASK people how they feel about getting older, and they will probably reply >>>in >>>the same vein as Maurice Chevalier: “Old age isn’t so bad when you consider >>>the >>>alternative.” Stiffening joints, weakening muscles, fading eyesight and the >>>clouding of memory, coupled with the modern world’s careless contempt for >>>the >>>old, seem a fearful prospect—better than death, perhaps, but not much. Yet >>>mankind is wrong to dread ageing. Life is not a long slow decline from >>>sunlit >>>uplands towards the valley of death. It is, rather, a U-bend. >>> >>>When people start out on adult life, they are, on average, pretty cheerful. >>>Things go downhill from youth to middle age until they reach a nadir >>>commonly >>>known as the mid-life crisis. So far, so familiar. The surprising part >>>happens >>>after that. Although as people move towards old age they lose things they >>>treasure—vitality, mental sharpness and looks—they also gain what people >>>spend >>>their lives pursuing: happiness. >>> >>>This curious finding has emerged from a new branch of economics that seeks a >>>more satisfactory measure than money of human well-being. Conventional >>>economics >>>uses money as a proxy for utility—the dismal way in which the discipline >>>talks >>>about happiness. But some economists, unconvinced that there is a direct >>>relationship between money and well-being, have decided to go to the nub of >>>the >>>matter and measure happiness itself. >>>Related items >>> >>> * Comparing countries: The rich, the poor and Bulgaria Dec 16th 2010 >>> >>>These ideas have penetrated the policy arena, starting in Bhutan , where the >>>concept of Gross National Happiness shapes the planning process. All new >>>policies have to have a GNH assessment, similar to the environmental-impact >>>assessment common in other countries. In 2008 France ’s president, Nicolas >>>Sarkozy, asked two Nobel-prize-winning economists, Amartya Sen and Joseph >>>Stiglitz, to come up with a broader measure of national contentedness than >>>GDP. >>>Then last month, in a touchy-feely gesture not typical of Britain , David >>>Cameron announced that the British government would start collecting figures >>>on >>>well-being. >>> >>>There are already a lot of data on the subject collected by, for instance, >>>America ’s General Social Survey, Eurobarometer and Gallup. Surveys ask two >>>main >>>sorts of question. One concerns people’s assessment of their lives, and the >>>other how they feel at any particular time. The first goes along the lines >>>of: >>>thinking about your life as a whole, how do you feel? The second is >>>something >>>like: yesterday, did you feel happy/contented/angry/anxious? The first sort >>>of >>>question is said to measure global well-being, and the second hedonic or >>>emotional well-being. They do not always elicit the same response: having >>>children, for instance, tends to make people feel better about their life as >>>a >>>whole, but also increases the chance that they felt angry or anxious >>>yesterday. >>> >>>Statisticians trawl through the vast quantities of data these surveys >>>produce >>>rather as miners panning for gold. They are trying to find the answer to the >>>perennial question: what makes people happy? >>> >>>Four main factors, it seems: gender, personality, external circumstances and >>>age. Women, by and large, are slightly happier than men. But they are also >>>more >>>susceptible to depression: a fifth to a quarter of women experience >>>depression >>>at some point in their lives, compared with around a tenth of men. Which >>>suggests either that women are more likely to experience more extreme >>>emotions, >>>or that a few women are more miserable than men, while most are more >>>cheerful. >>> >>>Two personality traits shine through the complexity of economists’ >>>regression >>>analyses: neuroticism and extroversion. Neurotic people—those who are prone >>>to >>>guilt, anger and anxiety—tend to be unhappy. This is more than a >>>tautological >>>observation about people’s mood when asked about their feelings by pollsters >>>or >>>economists. Studies following people over many years have shown that >>>neuroticism >>>is a stable personality trait and a good predictor of levels of happiness. >>>Neurotic people are not just prone to negative feelings: they also tend to >>>have >>>low emotional intelligence, which makes them bad at forming or managing >>>relationships, and that in turn makes them unhappy. >>> >>>Whereas neuroticism tends to make for gloomy types, extroversion does the >>>opposite. Those who like working in teams and who relish parties tend to be >>>happier than those who shut their office doors in the daytime and hole up at >>>home in the evenings. This personality trait may help explain some >>>cross-cultural differences: a study comparing similar groups of British, >>>Chinese >>>and Japanese people found that the British were, on average, both more >>>extrovert >>>and happier than the Chinese and Japanese. >>> >>>Then there is the role of circumstance. All sorts of things in people’s >>>lives, >>>such as relationships, education, income and health, shape the way they >>>feel. >>>Being married gives people a considerable uplift, but not as big as the >>>gloom >>>that springs from being unemployed. In America, being black used to be >>>associated with lower levels of happiness—though the most recent figures >>>suggest >>>that being black or Hispanic is nowadays associated with greater happiness. >>>People with children in the house are less happy than those without. More >>>educated people are happier, but that effect disappears once income is >>>controlled for. Education, in other words, seems to make people happy >>>because it >>>makes them richer. And richer people are happier than poor ones—though just >>>how >>>much is a source of argument (see article). >>> >>>The view from winter >>> >>>Lastly, there is age. Ask a bunch of 30-year-olds and another of >>>70-year-olds >>>(as Peter Ubel, of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University , >>>did >>>with two colleagues, Heather Lacey and Dylan Smith, in 2006) which group >>>they >>>think is likely to be happier, and both lots point to the 30-year-olds. Ask >>>them >>>to rate their own well-being, and the 70-year-olds are the happier bunch. >>>The >>>academics quoted lyrics written by Pete Townshend of The Who when he was 20: >>>“Things they do look awful cold / Hope I die before I get old”. They pointed >>>out >>>that Mr Townshend, having passed his 60th birthday, was writing a blog that >>>glowed with good humour. >>> >>>Mr Townshend may have thought of himself as a youthful radical, but this >>>view is >>>ancient and conventional. The “seven ages of man”—the dominant image of the >>>life-course in the 16th and 17th centuries—was almost invariably conceived >>>as a >>>rise in stature and contentedness to middle age, followed by a sharp decline >>>towards the grave. Inverting the rise and fall is a recent idea. “A few of >>>us >>>noticed the U-bend in the early 1990s,” says Andrew Oswald, professor of >>>economics at Warwick Business School . “We ran a conference about it, but >>>nobody came.” >>>People are least happy in their 40s and early 50s. They reach a nadir at a >>>global average of 46 >>> >>>Since then, interest in the U-bend has been growing. Its effect on happiness >>>is >>>significant—about half as much, from the nadir of middle age to the elderly >>>peak, as that of unemployment. It appears all over the world. David >>>Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College , and Mr Oswald >>>looked >>>at the figures for 72 countries. The nadir varies among >>>countries—Ukrainians, at >>>the top of the range, are at their most miserable at 62, and Swiss, at the >>>bottom, at 35—but in the great majority of countries people are at their >>>unhappiest in their 40s and early 50s. The global average is 46. >>> >>>The U-bend shows up in studies not just of global well-being but also of >>>hedonic >>>or emotional well-being. One paper, published this year by Arthur Stone, >>>Joseph >>>Schwartz and Joan Broderick of Stony Brook University , and Angus Deaton >>>of >>>Princeton , breaks well-being down into positive and negative feelings and >>>looks >>>at how the experience of those emotions varies through life. Enjoyment and >>>happiness dip in middle age, then pick up; stress rises during the early >>>20s, >>>then falls sharply; worry peaks in middle age, and falls sharply thereafter; >>>anger declines throughout life; sadness rises slightly in middle age, and >>>falls >>>thereafter. >>> >>>Turn the question upside down, and the pattern still appears. When the >>>British >>>Labour Force Survey asks people whether they are depressed, the U-bend >>>becomes >>>an arc, peaking at 46. >>> >>>Happier, no matter what >>> >>>There is always a possibility that variations are the result not of changes >>>during the life-course, but of differences between cohorts. A 70-year-old >>>European may feel different to a 30-year-old not because he is older, but >>>because he grew up during the second world war and was thus formed by >>>different >>>experiences. But the accumulation of data undermines the idea of a cohort >>>effect. Americans and Zimbabweans have not been formed by similar >>>experiences, >>>yet the U-bend appears in both their countries. And if a cohort effect were >>>responsible, the U-bend would not show up consistently in 40 years’ worth of >>>data. >>> >>>Another possible explanation is that unhappy people die early. It is hard to >>>establish whether that is true or not; but, given that death in middle age >>>is >>>fairly rare, it would explain only a little of the phenomenon. Perhaps the >>>U-bend is merely an expression of the effect of external circumstances. >>>After >>>all, common factors affect people at different stages of the life-cycle. >>>People >>>in their 40s, for instance, often have teenage children. Could the misery of >>>the >>>middle-aged be the consequence of sharing space with angry adolescents? And >>>older people tend to be richer. Could their relative contentment be the >>>result >>>of their piles of cash? >>> >>>The answer, it turns out, is no: control for cash, employment status and >>>children, and the U-bend is still there. So the growing happiness that >>>follows >>>middle-aged misery must be the result not of external circumstances but of >>>internal changes. >>> >>>People, studies show, behave differently at different ages. Older people >>>have >>>fewer rows and come up with better solutions to conflict. They are better at >>>controlling their emotions, better at accepting misfortune and less prone to >>>anger. In one study, for instance, subjects were asked to listen to >>>recordings >>>of people supposedly saying disparaging things about them. Older and younger >>>people were similarly saddened, but older people less angry and less >>>inclined to >>>pass judgment, taking the view, as one put it, that “you can’t please all >>>the >>>people all the time.” >>> >>>There are various theories as to why this might be so. Laura Carstensen, >>>professor of psychology at Stanford University , talks of “the uniquely >>>human >>>ability to recognise our own mortality and monitor our own time horizons”. >>>Because the old know they are closer to death, she argues, they grow better >>>at >>>living for the present. They come to focus on things that matter now—such as >>>feelings—and less on long-term goals. “When young people look at older >>>people, >>>they think how terrifying it must be to be nearing the end of your life. But >>>older people know what matters most.” For instance, she says, “young people >>>will >>>go to cocktail parties because they might meet somebody who will be useful >>>to >>>them in the future, even though nobody I know actually likes going to >>>cocktail >>>parties.” >>> >>>Death of ambition, birth of acceptance >>> >>>There are other possible explanations. Maybe the sight of contemporaries >>>keeling >>>over infuses survivors with a determination to make the most of their >>>remaining >>>years. Maybe people come to accept their strengths and weaknesses, give up >>>hoping to become chief executive or have a picture shown in the Royal >>>Academy , >>>and learn to be satisfied as assistant branch manager, with their >>>watercolour on >>>display at the church fete. “Being an old maid”, says one of the characters >>>in a >>>story by Edna Ferber, an (unmarried) American novelist, was “like death by >>>drowning—a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling.” Perhaps >>>acceptance of ageing itself is a source of relief. “How pleasant is the >>>day”, >>>observed William James, an American philosopher, “when we give up striving >>>to be >>>young—or slender.” >>> >>>Whatever the causes of the U-bend, it has consequences beyond the emotional. >>>Happiness doesn’t just make people happy—it also makes them healthier. John >>>Weinman, professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, monitored the >>>stress >>>levels of a group of volunteers and then inflicted small wounds on them. The >>>wounds of the least stressed healed twice as fast as those of the most >>>stressed. >>>At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh , Sheldon Cohen infected >>>people >>>with cold and flu viruses. He found that happier types were less likely to >>>catch >>>the virus, and showed fewer symptoms of illness when they did. So although >>>old >>>people tend to be less healthy than younger ones, their cheerfulness may >>>help >>>counteract their crumbliness. >>> >>>Happier people are more productive, too. Mr Oswald and two colleagues, >>>Eugenio >>>Proto and Daniel Sgroi, cheered up a bunch of volunteers by showing them a >>>funny >>>film, then set them mental tests and compared their performance to groups >>>that >>>had seen a neutral film, or no film at all. The ones who had seen the funny >>>film >>>performed 12% better. This leads to two conclusions. First, if you are going >>>to >>>volunteer for a study, choose the economists’ experiment rather than the >>>psychologists’ or psychiatrists’. Second, the cheerfulness of the old should >>>help counteract their loss of productivity through declining cognitive >>>skills—a >>>point worth remembering as the world works out how to deal with an ageing >>>workforce. >>> >>>The ageing of the rich world is normally seen as a burden on the economy and >>>a >>>problem to be solved. The U-bend argues for a more positive view of the >>>matter. >>>The greyer the world gets, the brighter it becomes—a prospect which should >>>be >>>especially encouraging to Economist readers (average age 47). >>> >
