DAVI BLANCHFLOWER
The phrase “mid-life crisis” might call to mind a stolid accountant running off with a woman half his age, or a burntout City banker. But in two recent studies, I’ve found signs of middleage problems that go well beyond any one gender, social class, or indeed part of the world.
Looking across data from 132 countries—including all the big rich economies, but also dozens of poorer ones—I find a U-shape relation between age and happiness. It doesn’t matter how the question is asked: whether it’s about general life satisfaction, feelings about your situation, or the plain vanilla option of how cheery you feel. Young adults start off relatively happy, before spirits sink in the 40s, and then recover again. The nadir tends to come at 47 or 48 in the rich and poor world alike. The sagging smile of middle age is equally apparent if we look at the markers of misery, rather than happiness.