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EN
The fear that happiness fades with age is one of social science’s most repeated findings, and it now looks largely wrong: in recent data from 44 countries distress fell as people got older, not the reverse
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That curve, the U-shape in wellbeing across the life cycle, became one of the most reproduced findings in social science.
One is about the old: distress in later life is lower than the U-curve led people to expect.
The other is about the young, whose mental health, the authors argue, has deteriorated sharply since the mid-2010s.
When the horizon draws in, as it does with age, motivation shifts towards emotional meaning in the present.
Distress and happiness are different measurements, and a survey that finds less despair at seventy is not the same as one finding more joy.