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‘Mid-life crisis’ may be a myth
Posted On Jan 12 2016
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Professor Nancy Galambos, also of the University of Alberta says it is extremely important to measure and understand happiness, as it affects our lifespan, our health and our overall wellbeing.
“I think it’s because life is more hard for younger people than for people in middle age”, Galambos explains.
Provocative new research challenges the belief that people experience happiness on a U-shaped curve over the life course with the low point becoming known as the “mid-life crisis”.
“It’s seems trite – ‘just be happy’ – but behind that are the policies shaping society”, says Harvey Krahn, another of the study’s co-authors.
A group of high school seniors were followed from age 18 through to 43, and a group of university seniors were followed from age 23 to 37.
But to truely get a grip on how our happiness evolves over a lifetime, this study tracked the same individuals as they got older, measuring how the same people reacted to lifes curveballs like marriage, career changes, divorce, or kids. Happiness for both groups increased into the 30s, the study says.
The results showed that after leaving high school and university, happiness levels increased right through to the 30s in both samples, showing that happiness is not only for the young.
Participants over time were asked how happy they were, what state their health was in, if they were married or not and if they were unemployed, among other general questions, Galambos said.
“We want people to be happier so that they have an easier life trajectory”.
The “Up, Not Down” study was published in the academic journal Developmental Psychology.
According to new research happiness doesn’t drop as we reach middle-age.
A study called “Up, Not Down” out of the University of Alberta surveyed the same 1,500 people for up to 25 years.
The rise in happiness between the teens and early 40s is not consistent with a mid-life crisis. These findings conflict with previous cross-sectional studies that found declines in happiness from the middle of the early 20s to middle age.
