Oswald and Blanchflower have been studying happiness as it relates to age for more than a decade; their first paper published on the topic in 2004 put the nadir at age 37 for men and 41 for women. “No explanation is available even in the psychology literature,” they noted at the time. A 2008 paper repeated the findings in both developed and developing countries and again said that that “what causes this apparently U-shaped curve … is unknown.”
“OK, but a decade ago the group with the highest rates of suicide used to be white men ages 75 to 84,” said Whitmore. “I’d hardly call that mid-life.”
Ultimately, they might both be right. Oswald and Blanchflower’s dip might not indicate the existential angst Jaques theorized in the 1960s. It may instead be a general side effect of contemporary adulthood. The dip occurs during people’s prime working years. It’s also the time period when most of them marry, form families, get mortgages and possibly experience unplanned shocks such as divorce or unemployment. The “mid-life low” hovers over a number of other studies, including one put out recently by a British human resources firm that found employees from age 35 to 55 were more likely to hate their jobs. A 2005 Families and Work Institute study found that people from 40 to 55 were more likely to feel overworked, but it noted that their feelings stemmed from demanding jobs and family obligations, not their age.
If anything, the dip recorded by Oswald and Blanchflower may simply be the statistical proof of what millennials are only starting to learn: “adulting” is hard.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.