Your early 20s really ARE your happiest years: Misery plagues middle-age as money and job worries take over (but the good news is life gets better at 65)

  • Study found happiness throughout life follows a U-shaped curve
  • Satisfaction at life begins to tail off in mid-20s and plateaus for 40 years
  • Financial worries, having children and money concerns fuel misery
  • But good news is happiness increases at 65 and peaks at the age of 80 

By Lizzie Parry For Dailymail.com

Published: 14:31 EST, 1 October 2015 | Updated: 15:55 EST, 1 October 2015

It is the golden decade, the time in your life when your carefree and at your happiest.

Never again will you enjoy the freedom and thrills of your 20s. Or so it may seem as you wave goodbye to the youthful decade.

And now a new study has now confirmed the fears of anyone encroaching on middle-age - a person's 20s are their happiest years.

But, while researchers warn of lower life satisfaction for 40 years, there is hope.

For their findings show that life does get better at 65, with happiness levels rising.

A study by scientists at the University of New South Wales found happiness in life follows a U-shaped curve, tailing off in a person's mid-20s before peaking again in retirement

A study by scientists at the University of New South Wales found happiness in life follows a U-shaped curve, tailing off in a person's mid-20s before peaking again in retirement

Dr Ioana Ramia, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, said: 'Satisfaction over life decreases from the early 20s, plateaus for about 40 years and then increases from about 65 up.' 

Speaking at the Australian Social Policy Conference, she presented the findings of a study that aimed to investigate how life satisfaction changes as people age, and what its drivers are.

The aim of the research was to help develop policy to target specific age groups.

Dr Ramia and her team drew on the national Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, and found that happiness follows a U-curve with the highest levels experiences by those aged 15 to 24 and over 75.

Happiness followed a predictable trajectory, she said, with couples reporting greatest satisfaction at life just before having their first child and a dip from their first year of life through to when the child reaches six years old and started school.

Dr Ramia said: 'It (happiness) then stays till low, but increases slightly, and is the highest around the age of 80.

'So that's something to look forward to.' 

Money and job worries are responsible for happiness dipping in middle-age, as experts say happiness dips and plateaus for around 40 years 

Money and job worries are responsible for happiness dipping in middle-age, as experts say happiness dips and plateaus for around 40 years 

She said her team's research shows a strong correlation during the middle-age plateau with employment opportunities and financial situation, when 'money and... jobs matter most'. 

This started in the mid-twenties and remained constant until older age, when the importance of work and earning decreased.

Satisfaction over life decreases from the early 20s, plateaus for about 40 years and then increases from about 65 up
Dr Ioana Ramia, from the University of New South Wales in Australia

Housing was of little importance in the overall happiness of younger people, but the results show people do care if they lived close to their workplace, entertainment and friends.

There was a greater emphasis on the quality of the dwelling itself into middle age and beyond, along with neighbourhood and community.

'At this time happiness is at its lowest and it only starts to increase when people start focusing on other things, like their free time,' said Dr Ramia.

Safety was an important aspect of life satisfaction in every age group, while health spiked twice – in the mid-30s with the first awareness of physical fallibility or illness, and again later in life, she said.

Though her research had shed some light onto the drivers of happiness, Dr Ramia said the peaks at young and old age remained poorly understood, with question marks around how satisfaction could remain constant across the major parameters described yet manage to increase with age overall.

Defining what ‘satisfaction’ was and how it was rated by subjects was also a challenge for future research, she said. 

But the good news is as retirement looms, life satisfaction increases at 65 reaching a peak at 80 years old

But the good news is as retirement looms, life satisfaction increases at 65 reaching a peak at 80 years old

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