Despite myth, old age is the happiest time, says research

The two go hand-in-hand being social can help keep away the blues. “The good news is with age comes happiness,” said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. “Life gets better in one’s perception as one ages.”

A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches, pains and deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said.

This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University ageing expert Linda George. An older person may realise ‘it’s fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner’.

George, who was not involved in the new study, believes the research is important because the general public continues to think that ‘late life is far from the best stage of life, and they don’t look forward to it’.

Yang’s findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28,000 people aged 18 to 88 took part.

In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 per cent with every 10 years of age.