The U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: evidence using world values survey data
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2017
Abstract
The paper retests the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age using the cross-classified multilevel regression procedure and the World Values Survey data. The analysis accounts for period and cohort effects. The results reconfirm the pattern that happiness is U-shaped in the life course. That is, happiness decreases from a high-point in young adulthood, reaches a low-point in midlife, and thereafter increases to arrive at another high-point in old age. The results show that the high-point of happiness in old age is lower than the high-point of happiness in young adulthood. That happiness does not return to its initial high-point after it drops to a low-point in midlife is perhaps another stylized fact in the relationship between happiness and age.
Recommended Citation
Beja, E.L. The U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: evidence using world values survey data. Qual Quant 52, 1817–1829 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0570-z
