The U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: Evidence using World Values Survey data

Beja, Edsel Jr. (2018): The U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: Evidence using World Values Survey data.

Abstract

The paper retests the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age using the cross-classified multilevel regression procedure and the World Values Survey data. The analysis accounts for period and cohort effects. The results reconfirm the pattern that happiness is U-shaped in the life course. That is, happiness decreases from a high-point in young adulthood, reaches a low-point in midlife, and thereafter increases to arrive at another high-point in old age. The results show that the high-point of happiness in old age is lower than the high-point of happiness in young adulthood. That happiness does not return to its initial high-point after it drops to a low-point in midlife is perhaps another stylized fact in the relationship between happiness and age.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Happiness; age; U-shaped relationship; multilevel regression
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics

References

Andrews, F. (1981). “Objective social indicators, subjective social indicators, and social account systems,” in F. Juster and K. Land (ed.), Social accounting systems (pp. 377-419), New York: Academic Press

Andrews, F. and Withey, S. (1976). Social indicators of well-being. New York: Plenum Press

Argyle, M. (2001). The psychology of happiness, London: Routledge

Belk, R. (1985). “Materialism: Trait aspects of living in the material world,” Journal of Consumer Research, 12(3): 265-280

Bell, A. (2014). “Life course and cohort trajectories of mental health in the UK, 1991-2008–A multilevel age-period-cohort analysis,” Social Science & Medicine, 120(November): 21-30

Blanchflower, D. (2010). “International evidence of well-being,” in A. Krueger (ed.), Measuring the subjective well-being of nations (pp. 155-226), Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Blanchflower, D. and Oswald, A. (2008). “Is well-being U-shaped over the life-cycle?,” Social Science & Medicine, 66(April): 1733-1749

Brassen, S., Gamer, M., Peters, J., Gluth, S., and Büchel, C. (2012). “Don’t look back in anger! Responsiveness to missed chances in successful and nonsuccessful aging,” Science, 336(6081): 612-614

Brown, S., Durand, R. Harris, M., and Weterings, T. (2014). “Modelling financial satisfaction across life stages: A latent class approach,” Journal of Economic Psychology, 45(December): 117-127

Campbell, A., Converse, P., and Rodgers, W. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations, and satisfaction, New York: Russell Sage Foundation

Carstensen, L. (1995). “Evidence for a life-span theory of socioemotional selectivity,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4(5): 151-155

Cheng, T., Powdthavee, N., and Oswald, A. (2017). “Longitudinal evidence for the midlife nadir in human well-being: Results from four data sets,” Economic Journal, 127(599): 126-142

Clark, A. (2003). “Unemployment as a social norm: Psychological evidence from panel data,” Journal of Labor Economics, 21(2): 323-351

Clark and Oswald (1994). “Unhappiness and Unemployment,” Economic Journal, 104(424): 648-659

Costa, P. and McCrae, R. (1988). “Personality in adulthood: A six-year longitudinal study of self-reports and spouse ratings on the NEO personality inventory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(4): 853-863.

Danner, D., Snowdon, D., and Friesen, W. (2001). “Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(5): 804-813

de Ree, J. and Alessie, R. (2011). “Life satisfaction and age: Dealing with underidentification in age-period-cohort models,” Social Science and Medicine, 73(July): 177-82

Deaton, A. (1985). “Panel data from time series of cross-sections,” Journal of Econometrics, 30(1-2): 109-126

Diener, E. and Larsen, R. (1984). “Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses,” Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 47(4): 580-592

Diener, E., Suh, E., Lucas, R., and Smith, H. (1999). “Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress,” Psychological Bulletin, 125(2): 276-302

Diener, E., Nickerson, C., Lucas, R., and Sandvik, E. (2002). “Dispositional affect and job outcomes,” Social Indicators Research, 59(3): 229-259

Easterlin, R. (1974). “Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence,” in P. David and M. Reder (eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89-125), New York: Academic Press

Easterlin, R. (2015). “Happiness and economic growth: The evidence,” in W. Glatzer, L. Camfeld, V. Moller, and M. Rojas (ed.), Global handbook of quality of life (pp. 283-299), Heidelberg: Springer

Easterlin, R. (2016). “Paradise lost?,” IZA Discussion Paper No. 9676, Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor

Easterlin, R. and Schaeffer, C. (1999). “Income and subjective well-being over the life cycle,” in C. Ryff and V. Marshall (ed.), The self and society in aging processes (pp. 279-301). New York: Springer

Ekman, P., Davidson, R., and Friesen, W. (1990). “The Duchenne Smile: Emotional Expression and Brain Physiology II,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2): 342-353

Ehrhardt, J., Saris W., and Veenhoven, R. (2000). “Stability of life satisfaction over time: Analysis of change in ranks in a national population,” Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(2): 177-205

Frijters, P. and Beatton, T. (2012). “The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness an age,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 82(May): 525-542

Glenn, N. (2003). “Distinguishing age, period, and cohort effects,” in J. Mortimer and M. Shanahan (eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 465-476). New York: Springer

Glenn, N. (2009). “Is the apparent U-shape of well-being over the life course a result of inappropriate use of control variables? A commentary on Blanchflower and Oswald (66: 8, 2008, 1733-1749),” Social Science and Medicine, 69(August): 481-485

Guven, C. (2011). “Are happier people better citizens?,” Kyklos, 64(2): 178-192

Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C., and Welzel, C. (2008). “Development, freedom, and rising happiness,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(4): 264-285

Lawton, M. (1996). “Quality of life and affect in later life,’ in C. Magai and S. McFadden (ed.) Handbook of emotions, adult development and aging (pp. 327-348), San Diego: Academic Press

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., and Diener, E. (2005). “The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success,” Psychological Bulletin, 131(6): 803-855

Mason, R. and Faulkenberry, G. (1978). “Aspirations, achievements, and life satisfaction,” Social Indicators Research, 5(2): 133-150

Mason, W. and Fienberg, S. (1985). Cohort analysis in social research: Beyond the identification problem, New York: Springer

McAdams, K., Lucas, R., and Donnellan, B. (2012). “The role of domain satisfaction in explaining the paradoxical association between life satisfaction and age,” Social Indicators Research, 109(2):295-303

McMahon, E. and Estes, D. (2012). “Age-related differences in lay conceptions of well-being and experienced well-being,” Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(1): 79-101

Michalos, A. (1985). “Multiple discrepancies theory (MDT),” Social Indicators Research, 16(4): 347-413

Mogilner, C., Kamvar, S., and Aaker, J. (2011). “The shifting meaning of happiness,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(4): 395-402

Oishi, S., Graham, J., Kesebir, S., and Galinha, I. (2013). “Concepts of happiness across time and cultures,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(5): 559-577

Plagnol, A. (2011). “Financial satisfaction over the life course: The influences of assets and liabilities,” Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(1): 45-64

Ryff, C. (1995). “Psychological well-being in adult life,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4(4): 99-104

Sandvik, E., Diener, E., and Seidlitz, L. (1993). “Subjective well-being: The convergence and stability of self-report and non-self-report measures,” Journal of Personality, 61(3): 317-342

Schimmack, U. and Oishi, S. (2005). “The influence of chronically and temporarily accessible information on life satisfaction judgments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3): 395-406

Schwandt, H. (2016). “Unmet aspirations as an explanation for the age U-shape in wellbeing,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 122(February): 75-87

Steptoe, A., Deaton, A., and Stone, A. (2015). “Subjective wellbeing, health, and ageing,” Lancet, 385(9968):640-648

Stone, A., Schwartz, J., Broderick, J., and Deaton, A. (2010). “A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(22): 9985-9990

Van Landeghem, B. (2012). “A test for the convexity of human well-being over the life cycle: longitudinal evidence from a 20-year panel,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(February): 571-582

Wienman, J., Ebrecht, M., Scott, S., Walburn, J., and Dyson, M. (2008). “Enhanced wound healing after emotional disclosure intervention,” British Journal of Health Psychology, 13(1): 95-102

Wunder, C., Wiencierz, A., Schwarze, J., and Küchenhoff, H. (2013). “Well-being over the life span: Semiparametric evidence from British and German longitudinal data,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 95(1): 154-167.

Yang, Y. (2008). “Social inequalities in happiness in the United States, 1972 to 2004: An age-period-cohort analysis,” American Sociological Review, 73(2): 204-226

Yang, Y. and Land, K. (2013). Age-period-cohort analysis, Boca Raton: CRC Press