Midlife crisis does not exist, says new study
The midlife crisis a popular concept and is considered a fact. But now, a 25-year long study challenges the concept and says that people are happier in middle age.
The paper, “Up, Not Down: The Age Curve in Happiness from Early Adulthood to Midlife In Two Longitudinal Studies” — a paper recently published in Developmental Psychology — based on data drawn from two longitudinal studies by University of Alberta researchers Nancy Galambos, Harvey Krahn, Matt Johnson and their team.
Contrary to previous cross-sectional studies of life-span happiness, this new longitudinal data suggests happiness does not stall in midlife, but instead is part of an upward trajectory beginning in our teens and early twenties. And, according to Galambos and Krahn, this study is far more reliable than the research that came before it.
“I’m not trashing cross-sectional research, but if you want to see how people change as they get older, you have to measure the same individuals over time,” sociologist Krahn said.
The team followed two cohorts — one of Canadian high school seniors from ages 18 — 43 and the other a group of university seniors from ages 23-37. Both showed happiness increased into the 30s, with a slight downturn by age 43 in the high school sample. After accounting for variations in participants’ lives, such as changes in marital status and employment, both samples still demonstrated a general rise in happiness after high school and university.
The study also revealed these additional facts:
- People are happier in their early 40s (midlife) than they were at age 18
- Happiness rises fastest between age 18 and well into the 30s
- Happiness is higher in years when people are married and in better physical health, and lower in years when people are unemployed
- The rise in happiness between the teens and early 40s is not consistent with a midlife crisis
- The rise in happiness to midlife refutes the purported “u-bend” in happiness, which assumes that happiness declines between the teens and the 40s
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