Americans Become Happier With Age Says Second Study
Challenging Senior Stereotypes
Baby boomers are not as content as other generations
April
21, 2008 - Although some senior citizens may be as surprised as younger
people, researchers continue to find that older people are happy,
despite the aches, pains and other challenges of aging. Americans
actually become happier as they age, says the latest study, which
follows a study finding seniors more socially active than younger people
(see sidebar).
The study, one of the most thorough examinations of
happiness in America, also found that baby boomers are not as content as
other generations, blacks are less happy than whites, women are happier
than men, happiness can rise and fall between eras, and that, as people
age, their happiness increases while the differences between genders and
ethnic groups narrow.
“Understanding happiness is important to
understanding quality of life. The happiness measure is a guide to how
well society is meeting people’s needs,” said Yang Yang, assistant
professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and author of the
article, “Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States,
1972-2004: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis,” published in the April issue
of the American Sociological Review.
The study is based on data from the National
Science Foundation-supported General Social Survey (GSS) of the National
Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Since 1972, the GSS has asked a scientifically
selected cross-section of Americans this same question:
“Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would
you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?”
The question is administered with other queries in
face-to-face interviews of between about 1,500 to 3,000 people,
resulting in data that social scientists consider the gold standard of
happiness research.
Yang charted happiness across age and racial groups
and found that among 18-year-olds, white women are the happiest, with a
33 percent probability of being very happy, followed by white men (28
percent), black women (18 percent) and black men (15 percent).
Differences vanish over time, however, as happiness
increases. Black men and black women have just more than a 50 percent
chance of being very happy by their late 80s, while white men and white
women are close behind.
The increase in happiness with age is consistent
with the “age as maturity hypothesis,” Yang said. With age comes
positive psychosocial traits, such as self-integration and self-esteem;
these signs of maturity could contribute to a better sense of overall
well-being. In addition, group differences in happiness decrease with
age due to the equalization of resources that contribute to happiness,
such as access to health care, including Medicare and Medicaid, and the
loss of social support due to the deaths of spouses and friends, Yang
added.
The time span of the survey also helped determine
how different people in the same generational group fared. The baby boom
generation (born from 1946 to1964) was the least happy among those
surveyed.
“This is probably due to the fact that the
generation as a group was so large, and their expectations were so
great, that not everyone in the group could get what he or she wanted as
they aged due to competition for opportunities. This could lead to
disappointment that could undermine happiness,” Yang said.
On another measure, Yang found that happiness in
the country is not static. Reviewing the study’s 33-year period, she
noticed definite upticks when the nation flourished economically. For
example, she found that 1995 was a very good year on the happiness
scale.
The American Sociological Review is the flagship
journal of the American Sociological Association.
About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit
membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work,
advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the
contributions and use of sociology to society.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
bommers
April
21, 2008 - Although some senior citizens may be as surprised as younger
people, researchers continue to find that older people are happy,
despite the aches, pains and other challenges of aging. Americans
actually become happier as they age, says the latest study, which
follows a study finding seniors more socially active than younger people
(see sidebar).