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I'm looking at journal articles about how age correlates with happiness and this sentence doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in the state of research: T

I'm looking at journal articles about how age correlates with happiness and this sentence doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in the state of research: This paper is the mirror image of Blanchflower (2020b) that examined unhappiness data and finds comparable evidence using twenty different measures for an unhappiness curve that maximized with controls at age 49 compared with a zenith of happiness estimated in this paper at age 48. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-020-00797-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-020-00797-z

irrational 4y ago
Back in the day, people would get married and have a few kids early in life. 48 is when the kids would be leaving the home. So you are probably making a decent salary, no longer have kids at home, and are young enough to still be healthy. Now you can have sex without worrying about the kids hearing. Can travel whenever you want. Have money to buy whatever toys you want. Have time to pick up new hobbies. Etc. Bottom line, I wonder if these figures come from baby boomers and/or Gen X. Later generations tend to get married later and put off having kids to later, so I would expect their happiness zenith to be late 50s or 60s.
- topkai22 4y ago
  49 or 50 is the average age when kids leave the house today. Average age of the mother at last birth is 31 in the US: https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/carlson-guzzo-median-age-last-birth-fp-21-05.html https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/ca.... That's as of 2019, for women in mid-late Gen X. The average. The number will drift up a bit with millennials, but since the average age of the mother at first birth has gone from ~25 to ~27 I wouldn't expect to go dramatically up.
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  Empty nest syndrome seems to typically set in once the kids are actually gone. I'm also not sure anyone's quality of life drastically improves due to that one factor, anyway. It's mostly young kids that really disrupt your life, not any kids at all. You can travel and leave a 16 year-old home alone, and that should be old enough to not worry if they can hear you having sex. The next big quality of life jump is when they no longer depend on you financially, but that is likely to happen well after they move out, not immediately.

irrational 4y ago

Back in the day, people would get married and have a few kids early in life. 48 is when the kids would be leaving the home. So you are probably making a decent salary, no longer have kids at home, and are young enough to still be healthy. Now you can have sex without worrying about the kids hearing. Can travel whenever you want. Have money to buy whatever toys you want. Have time to pick up new hobbies. Etc. Bottom line, I wonder if these figures come from baby boomers and/or Gen X. Later generations tend to get married later and put off having kids to later, so I would expect their happiness zenith to be late 50s or 60s.

topkai22 4y ago
49 or 50 is the average age when kids leave the house today. Average age of the mother at last birth is 31 in the US: https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/carlson-guzzo-median-age-last-birth-fp-21-05.html https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/ca.... That's as of 2019, for women in mid-late Gen X. The average. The number will drift up a bit with millennials, but since the average age of the mother at first birth has gone from ~25 to ~27 I wouldn't expect to go dramatically up.
nonameiguess 4y ago
Empty nest syndrome seems to typically set in once the kids are actually gone. I'm also not sure anyone's quality of life drastically improves due to that one factor, anyway. It's mostly young kids that really disrupt your life, not any kids at all. You can travel and leave a 16 year-old home alone, and that should be old enough to not worry if they can hear you having sex. The next big quality of life jump is when they no longer depend on you financially, but that is likely to happen well after they move out, not immediately.