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Studies Find Senior Years Really Are The Golden Years

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The Washington Post

Published: July 15, 2008

Recent studies show that when you check on how happy people are at various ages, the elderly generally come out ahead.

Since 1972, researchers have conducted a General Social Survey which includes 50,000 detailed interviews of Americans. One question asks whether they are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy.

"One important finding was people who were biologically older are happier than younger adults," said Tom W. Smith of the University of Chicago, who is the director of the survey.

The study, conducted by researcher Yang Yang at the University of Chicago, found that those older than 65 had not always been happy. It was being older that conferred the contentment that many of them reported.

"It is counter to most people's expectations," said Smith, who spoke about Yang's paper because she was not available. "People would expect it to be in the opposite direction - you start off by saying older people have illnesses, deaths of spouses - they must be less happy."

Smith said he and other colleagues had also examined the phenomenon from a different perspective, by asking people about their problems - including physical ailments, problems with relationships, losing a beloved family member and becoming the victim of a crime.

Smith found that older people reported a larger number of health problems, but tended to report far fewer difficulties - financial, interpersonal and crime problems - overall.

The younger adults, Smith said, had less trouble with their health but had many more of the other kinds of complications, and those, in the long run, tended to trump their better health.

The study was published in the American Sociological Review.

Yet another study, Smith said, looked at job satisfaction among people of different ages and again found that those who kept working past age 65 had the highest level of job satisfaction, going against the stereotype that older people keep working mostly because they can't do without the money.

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