People are happiest at 16 and 70, finds study

 Well-Being Levels — Which Include Happiness, Life Satisfaction, Self-Worth, Lack Of Anxiety— Fall Between 20s And 50s

While one could be happy at any age, it peaks first at age 16, according to a new study by a UK-based think tank. Don’t worry if 16 is a distant memory, though, as our well-being reaches a high point again later in life — at 70. The Resolution Foundation analysed seven years of wellbeing surveys run by the Office for National Statistics since 2011. Respondents of a variety of ages rated their life satisfaction, self-worth, happiness and anxiety levels on a scale from one to 10. In a Ushaped curve, it showed that being in one’s 50s is the pits, while the ages of 16 and 70 are the twin peaks of happiness. According to the report, what contributes to happiness at 70 is, predictably, good fortune to have health, a degree, a job, a partner and to own your home. “The report finds that well-being levels — which include happiness, life satisfaction, self-worth and lack of anxiety — generally fall between someone’s mid-20s and early 50s, and then start rising again until people reach their 70s. On the basis of age alone, the key to happiness is to be 16 or 70,” the think tank notes. It calls on policy-makers who want to boost well-being to dig deeper into what drives those improvements. A secure job, a home of your own, and more money, particularly for low-income households, are all key drivers of higher well-being, and should therefore be prioritised. “Well-being matters to all of us, and yet we’ve only recently started to collect serious data on how happy people are with their lives. This important data shows that there is more to life than a country’s GDP, but that the employment and

income trends that lie behind our economy can make a big difference to our well-being too,” said George Bangham, research and policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation. “It is encouraging that a growing number of policymakers are interested in boosting well-being. But their focus on the new objective should complement, rather than replace, priorities such as income redistribution, better jobs and secure housing. The evidence suggests that these core economic policies are effective ways to raise well-being,” he said. The report, ‘Happy Now?’, finds that the most important determinants of well-being are having good health, a job and a partner, but that levels of well-being also vary significantly depending on someone’s age, income level, housing tenure, and neighbourhood. The report notes too that permanent contracts and control of working hours are also associated with higher well-being, suggesting that quantity and quality matter when it comes to work. The think-tank concludes that the importance of stronger income growth, higher employment, better jobs and increasing home ownership in boosting well-being reinforce the need for policy-makers to focus on these issues

Source: Times of India, 18/02/2019