Age is just a number. Yes, in this case the worst number possible.
The worst number for what? For wellbeing. According to a study from the US’s National Bureau of Economic Research, 47.2 is the unhappiest age you can be.
What happens after that? You start to feel a bit better.
You mean people in their 50s are happier than people in their 40s? Yes, and people in their 60s are happier still.
Why on earth would that be? No one can say for sure, but traditionally the idea is that the pressures and anxieties of work and family increase throughout your adult years until you hit your mid-40s, and then they begin to abate. Happiness correspondingly dips and recovers.
First-world problems. That’s what people used to think, but this new study, produced by the former Bank of England economist David Blanchflower, examined data across 132 countries, and found that the happiness curve is similarly U-shaped everywhere.
So 47.2 is the global age of maximum unhappiness? It strikes a bit later – at 48.2 – in the developing world, but the pattern remains the same. “The curve’s trajectory holds true in countries where the median wage is high and where it is not, and where people tend to live longer and where they don’t,” writes Blanchflower.
