Until just recently, global life satisfaction showed a predictable curve such that after a peak of happiness in one’s early 20’s, there’s a long, slow decline that bottoms out in one’s late 40s and early 50s, while steadily rising after that. At MEA, we’ve studied this closely and it’s a core part of our foundational “long life learning” education. But, since 2022, something new has shown up such that life satisfaction for GenZers who become adults is lower than for any other age cohort. Here’s a new, short NY Times video outlining this shift.
So, the Happiness Curve has become a Climb, partly due to the effects of COVID on young people as well as a generational despair about the future. Many academics think this new shape – from Curve to Climb – might be a momentary dip that is reserved to this problematic decade, but let’s explore what this change might mean for society if it persists:
- First off, it’s time for this Happiness study to become longitudinal which means academics would track the same people over the course of time which is a more reliable way to understand the emotional ebb and flow of specific people. It would also be good to understand what the effect of COVID was on various generations.
- If the Happiness Curve becomes a Climb, it could bode well for addressing ageism. Generally, we’ve talked about aging as being one long, slow decline from early life to later life such that it was more like a Happiness Descent. It often surprises people to see the graph showing that life satisfaction grows after age 50. But, if this data holds up over time, the new societal narrative to young people might be “hold on through those early adult years because life gets better with each passing decade.”
- What does this mean for the “midlife crisis” (or “chrysalis”)? This 2022 line shows a flattening out of life satisfaction in midlife when there was previously a dip so, if this persists in the data moving forward, it means we need to acknowledge that our 40s and early 50s are still a challenging time with all the plates spinning, but it’s not as traumatizing as early adulthood.
In sum, MEA will continue to educate midlifers on the U-Curve of Happiness with the asterisk that there may be structural societal changes afoot that means we need to support our young adults even more. This is part of the reason we’re in the early stages of developing an MEA workshop in 2026 for Millennials/GenZ younger people.
-Chip
P.S. I was fortunate enough to keynote Coaching.com’s annual Online Summit last year, possibly the most important global online event for coaching annually. If you’re a coach or coaching-curious, you should check out this year’s Summit which starts on June 3. Here’s a quick video from me poolside about the Summit.