Midlife Crisis is Dead in 34 Countries: Young People Suffer as Older Generations Thrive

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the disappearance of the "midlife crisis" phenomenon, where well-being and happiness used to bottom out and peak in midlife, respectively. The key findings are:

• The well-known "U-shape" in well-being and "hump shape" in unhappiness by age has disappeared in the U.S., U.K. and many other countries in recent years.
• Unhappiness now declines monotonically with age rather than peaking in midlife.
• This change is driven by a rapid deterioration in the mental health of adolescents and young adults, especially young women.
• The trend started around 2011 after the Great Recession and accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• New data from over 30 countries confirms unhappiness is now highest in the young and steadily declines with age globally.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Key Findings

1. What are the key findings regarding the changes in the age profile of well-being and unhappiness?

• The well-known "U-shape" in well-being and "hump shape" in unhappiness by age has disappeared in the U.S., U.K. and many other countries in recent years.
• Unhappiness now declines monotonically with age rather than peaking in midlife.

2. What is driving this change?

• The change is driven by a rapid deterioration in the mental health of adolescents and young adults, especially young women.

3. When did this trend start and what events may have contributed to it?

• The trend started around 2011 after the Great Recession and accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

4. What do the findings from over 30 countries show?

• New data from over 30 countries confirms unhappiness is now highest in the young and steadily declines with age globally.

[02] Overview

1. What is the empirical regularity that no longer holds, according to the new research?

• The well-being bottoming out and unhappiness peaking in midlife, which was a long-observed empirical regularity by social scientists, no longer holds.

2. What are the key points about the change in the age profile of unhappiness?

• Around 2011, the age profile of unhappiness fundamentally changed.
• While unhappiness used to follow an inverted U-shape, peaking in one's 40s and 50s before improving later in life, it now monotonically declines with age.

3. What are the consequences of this change?

• More young people are struggling in school, dropping out of the workforce, and in the worst cases, taking their own lives.
• Suicide rates among U.S. teens and young adults are up more than 50% since 2010.

[03] The Data

1. What do the data from government health surveys in the U.S. and U.K. show?

• The proportion of young women who experienced serious psychological distress in the past month more than doubled between 2009 and 2022.
• For young men, it also rose substantially, though not quite as dramatically.

2. What did the researchers find when replicating the analysis across 34 countries?

• In every country, unhappiness was highest among 18-24-year-olds and declined with each successive age group.
• Young women fared the worst.

3. What potential causes for the changes are mentioned?

• The 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020, and the meteoric rise of smartphones and social media are pointed to as potential culprits.
• Excessive screen time has been linked to poor mental health outcomes in teens.