“Happiness is approximately U-shaped through the life course; mental distress tends to reach a maximum in middle age. Our regression equations allow for confounding influences including income, education and marriage upon happiness and life satisfaction. The empirical findings should thus be read as tracing out an age U-shape in ceteris paribus well-being . In some nations, that U-shape holds in raw data; in other countries it is necessary to use multiple regression methods. Our main conclusion is meant as a broad characterization of the data, and should be kept in perspective. We have not presented detailed findings from the fitting of high-order polynomials. There is, for example, a little evidence from our non-parametric work for a further flattening, and a turn down, towards the end of a person’s life.” –
