What is the happiest age?

Key points:

• Researchers examined trends in subjective well-being throughout life based on 443 study samples with a total of 460,902 participants

• The findings were published in the journal Psychological Bulletin on September 7, 2023

• Overall, people experienced a positive emotional trend throughout the majority of their lives, with ‘transitional’ periods marked by a decrease in happiness

If you’ve ever debated whether younger or older people are happier — dreamt of being a financially stable retiree or felt nostalgia for your time as a vigorous and laissez-faire  20-something — new research may hold the answer.

A research team from the German Sport University Cologne, Ruhr University Bochum, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the universities of Bern and Basel in Switzerland have shed light on the burning question.

Their findings indicated that life satisfaction decreased between the ages of nine and 16, then increased slightly until the age of 70, before decreasing again until the age of 96.

“We focused on changes in three central components of subjective well-being: life satisfaction, positive emotional states and negative emotional states,” explained Professor Susanne Bücker, who initially worked on the study in Bochum and has since moved to Cologne.

“Overall, the study indicated a positive trend over a wide period of life, if we look at life satisfaction and negative emotional states.”

The researchers attributed the slight decline in life satisfaction between the ages of nine and 16 to, for example, changes to the body and to a person’s social life during puberty. Satisfaction generally rose from young adulthood onwards and positive feelings would tend to decrease from childhood to late adulthood. In very late adulthood, all components of subjective well-being tended to worsen rather than improve.

“This could be related to the fact that, in very old people, physical performance decreases, health often deteriorates and social contacts diminish; not least [sic] because their peers pass away,” Prof Bücker said.

Respondents showed small ups and downs in their self-reported negative emotional states between the ages of nine and 22. However, after the age of 22, participants were less likely to report negativity in their lives — a trend that continued until respondents were approximately 60 years old, at which point, reported negativity began to increase.

Analyses of the study, titled ‘The development of subjective well-being across the life span: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies,’ suggested that the pattern of positive and negative changes throughout life held true across gender, country, ethnicity, sample type, the measure of well-being, time frame of well-being measure and birth cohort.

Researchers hoped that their findings could provide significant guidance for the development of intervention programs — especially those aimed at maintaining or improving subjective well-being late in life.

In 2010, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that people aged 65 – 74 years old were the most likely to be at least satisfied with their lives. However, those aged 45 – 54 years old were the least likely to be at least satisfied with their lives. As noted in the Study, however, life satisfaction is only one part of how happy people are with their overall lives. 

For those interested in reading the report in full, please head to the Psychological Bulletin online portal. For more information about health, well-being and age, stay up to date with news and industry insights by subscribing to the Talking Aged Care newsletter.

What aged did you feel happiest? Let the team at Talking Aged Care know!