Dr Ling Sing Lin has described all the ingredients of a good (and happy) life in our later years: spending more time with our families (grandchildren!); leisure time with friends (travelling!); gratitude (giving and volunteering!), and wisdom that often comes with old age. Are there any scientific reasons why old age could be the happiest time in our lives?
Our happiness may be affected by age (alone). Unexpectedly, the relationship between satisfaction and age came from economic research.
In the 70s, Richard Easterlin, an economist, noticed that countries don’t get happier as they get richer beyond a certain point. In doing so, he founded a new branch of economics focused on human wellbeing. Twenty years later, British labour economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald discovered life satisfaction declines with age for the first couple of decades of adulthood, bottom out in the 40s or early 50s, and increase with age, reaching a higher level than in young adulthood.
The pattern became known as the “Happiness U-curve”, – and they observed the same phenomenon in over 80 countries. Statisticians adjusted this curve for income, marital status, employment, and other factors to reflect the effect of age on our wellbeing.
Now how do we explain the “Happiness U-curve”?
The dip, the trough of the U curve (“middle-age crisis”), reflects a mismatch of expectations and reality. Younger people consistently overestimate how satisfied they would be, say, five years later, while older people underestimate future satisfaction. Hence, youth is a period of perpetual disappointment, and elderhood is a period of pleasant surprise! This observation is accurate for those that achieve many early life goals – and they expect even greater satisfaction to come. Economists named this phenomenon “hedonic treadmill” – new achievements beget new targets with no lasting joy achieving the given goals.
As we age, our values change; we shift away from work to the community. We begin to measure our worth by how we help others and contribute to the community. In addition, gratitude begins to feature more prominently. We feel the satisfaction of giving. We invest more in relationships and derive great pleasure from them. As the future becomes less distant, we focus on the present; the meaningful goals in old age are savouring and living for the moment.
When we leave behind midlife, we can expect lower stress, improved emotional regulation, and less regret – an overall sense of positivity and contentment. Yes, we can age happily. We often feel better, not worse, about our lives despite health problems. Is there anything cognitive that improves with ageing? Wisdom!
The concept of wisdom is similar across centuries and geographic regions. The wise tend to show compassion and empathy; sound social reasoning and decision making; tranquillity and tolerance of divergent values; and comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. We make better social reasoning and long-term decisions. The total package is more than the sum of the parts; the parts work together to improve life for the wise and their communities.
Elderhood (as opposed to childhood and adulthood) is truly satisfying!
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
