Middle Age Misery Peaks At 47 For Most Americans, Study Finds

Middle age can be a miserable time, particularly for a certain cohort of Gen Xers who are struggling through divorce, a dead-end career, insufficient savings or overwhelming debt.

But David Blanchflower, a professor at Dartmouth College and former BoE policy maker, examined data across 132 countries to measure the relationship between wellbeing and age.

And what he found surprised him, according to Bloomberg.

He concluded that every country has a “happiness curve” that’s U-shaped over a typical lifetime.

“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,” Blanchflower wrote in a study that was published Monday by the NBER.

For most of the developed world, the age of peak unhappiness is 47.2 years old.

Most of a person’s middle years are miserable, according to the study. But oddly enough, as we approach the golden years, we start to appreciate life a little bit more.

Perhaps that has something to do with approaching retirement age (something millennials might never reach). Or maybe it’s simply the wisdom of age.

But for most of life, expect the misery to get worse before it gets better. Just one more reason why Americans are seeking mental health advice in droves.