Middle Age Depression

As readers of this blog can tell, I am an avid reader of the science press. I guess it comes from the fact that I was a chemistry major, and have kept a life long interest in all things scientific even after choosing a different career path.

Today, I ran across a very interesting study that says that our happiness levels form a U curve over our lifespan--we are happiest at the beginning and the end but apparantly miserable in the middle. Here is the Science Digest description:

Using data on 2 million people, from 80 nations, researchers from the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College in the US have found an extraordinarily consistent international pattern in depression and happiness levels that leaves us most miserable in middle age.

The researchers found happiness levels followed a U shaped curve, with happiness higher towards the start and end of our lives and leaving us most miserable in middle age. Many previous studies of the life-course had suggested that psychological well-being stayed relatively flat and consistent as we aged.

Using a sample of 1 million people from the UK, the researchers discovered that for both men and women the probability of depression peaks around 44 years of age. In the US they found a significant difference between men and women with unhappiness reaching a peak at around 40 years of age for women and 50 years of age for men.

They found the same U-shape in happiness levels and life satisfaction by age for 72 countries: Albania; Argentina; Australia; Azerbaijan; Belarus; Belgium; Bosnia; Brazil; Brunei; Bulgaria; Cambodia; Canada; Chile; China; Colombia; Costa Rica; Croatia; Czech Republic; Denmark; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; El Salvador; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Honduras; Hungary; Iceland; Iraq; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Kyrgyzstan; Laos; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Macedonia; Malta; Mexico; Myanmar; Netherlands; Nicaragua; Nigeria; Norway; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Poland; Portugal; Puerto Rico; Romania; Russia; Serbia; Singapore; Slovakia; South Africa; South Korea; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Tanzania; Turkey; United Kingdom; Ukraine; Uruguay; USA; Uzbekistan; and Zimbabwe.

The authors, economists Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick and Professor David Blanchflower from Dartmouth College in the US, believe that the U-shaped effect stems from something inside human beings. They show that signs of mid-life depression are found in all kinds of people; it is not caused by having young children in the house, by divorce, or by changes in jobs or income.

University of Warwick Economist Professor Andrew Oswald said:

"Some people suffer more than others but in our data the average effect is large. It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children. Nobody knows why we see this consistency."

. . .

Their paper entitled "Is Well-being U-Shaped over the Life Cycle?" is to be published shortly in Social Science & Medicine.

The research analysed information on 500,000 randomly sampled Americans and West Europeans from the General Social Surveys of the United States and the Eurobarometer Surveys. The authors also looked at the mental health levels of 16,000 Europeans, the depression and anxiety levels among a large sample of U.K. citizens, and data from the "The World Values Survey" which gives samples of people in 80 countries.





Why would this be the case? The study offers some speculations, but the most persausive explanation to me is that the happiest people tend to live longer:

"What causes this apparently U-shaped curve, and its similar shape in different parts of the developed and even often developing world, is unknown. However, one possibility is that individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell their infeasible aspirations. Another possibility is that cheerful people live systematically longer. A third possibility is that a kind of comparison process is at work in which people have seen similar-aged peers die and value more their own remaining years. Perhaps people somehow learn to count their blessings."




Read it all here.

As a fairly happy guy at nearly 49, I guess this is very good news--the future should be even brighter!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think miidle age is the height of depression because after a lifetime of working hard to be a good professional , father and husband, you end up at home on a Sunday night eating a Lean Cuisine frozen pizza, while your kids are away enjoying themselves and your wife is away on a business trip in San Francisco for a week with her divorced sister that you used to feel sorry for because she was alone.
May 17, 2009 at 7:40 PM
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