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The Midlife Crisis, Suicide, and Social and Economic Policy
Andrew Oswald Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science University of Warwick, UK Downloadable papers at I would like to acknowledge that these ideas come out of joint work with co-authors Ahmed Tohamy, Andrew Clark, Nick Powdthavee, David G. Blanchflower, Alex Weiss, Rainer Winkelmann, Dilip Jeste, and Steve Wu. I thank the ESRC for support.
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Humans have feelings, and feelings matter.
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What happens as we get older?
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Jaques, E. (1965). Death and the mid-life crisis
Jaques, E. (1965). Death and the mid-life crisis. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 46,
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Is there scientific evidence for a midlife crisis?
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Scientific opinion “The midlife crisis is a myth…”
“Epidemiological study of psychological distress…does not suggest that midlife is a time of out-of-the-ordinary distress” etc.
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The bottom line today
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The bottom line today There really is a midlife low
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The bottom line today There really is a midlife low
It seems to happen equally in men and women
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The bottom line today There really is a midlife low
It seems to happen equally in men and women It is scientifically unexplained
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The bottom line today There really is a midlife low
It seems to happen equally in men and women It is scientifically unexplained There is a possibility that it is somehow biological.
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Two separate literatures
U-shaped well-being patterns Hill-shaped suicide patterns
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Let’s start with the second (joint work with Ahmed Tohamy)
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Let’s start with the second (joint work with Ahmed Tohamy)
I’ll concentrate on data on females.
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The hill-shaped pattern of suicide among modern British females
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The hill-shape for Swedish females
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The hill-shape in Belgium
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The hill-shape in the Netherlands
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The hill-shape in Canada
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Yet most of these are small- to medium-size nations.
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The hill-shaped pattern of suicide among modern US females
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And … the US had a hill-shape in 1980
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The US hill-shape in 1980
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Averaging for 28 industrialized nations
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The hill-shaped pattern of suicide among modern US females
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If you would like to see results for males:
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Britain
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Canada
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USA
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Another approach -- using subjective well-being data.
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Regression equations Mental well-being = f(Age, gender, education level, income, marital status, friendship networks, region, year…)
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The pattern of a typical person’s happiness through life
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This holds in various settings
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Life Satisfaction in Eurobarometer data (36 nations; 32,000 observations). Year Blanchflower-Oswald estimates
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Arthur Stone, Angus Deaton, et al (2010)
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Overall well-being: USA
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The latest UK government data (Sample: 100,000 Britons) Blanchflower-Oswald estimates
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Recent US data (Sample: 400,000 Americans) Blanchflower-Oswald estimates
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New UK survey questions
• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
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New UK survey questions
• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? • Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
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New UK survey questions
• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? • Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? • Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
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New UK survey questions
• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? • Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? • Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? • Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
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Well-being and age, for example
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The probability of depression by age
Males, LFS data set 0.02 0.015 0.01 Regression coefficient 0.005 -0.005 -0.01 1938 1942 1946 1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 Year of birth
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Depression by age among females: LFS data 2004-2006Q2
0.002 -0.002 -0.004 Regression coefficient -0.006 -0.008 -0.01 -0.012 -0.014 1942 1946 1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 Year of birth
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The Relationship Between the Probability of Antidepressant Use and Age (European nations)
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and longitudinally: “Longitudinal Evidence for a Midlife Nadir in Human Well-being: Results from Four Data Sets” (with T. Cheng and N. Powdthavee). Economic Journal, 2017.
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But what causes the midlife dip?
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But what causes the midlife dip?
It is nothing to do with having young children, and is found all over the world.
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But what causes the midlife dip?
It is nothing to do with having young children, and is found all over the world. 65+ nations so far.
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Why?
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Until recently, the leading theory was one of thwarted aspirations.
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Until recently, the leading theory was one of thwarted aspirations.
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But researchers around the world must now consider throwing away that theory.
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Happiness in humans
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So currently researchers are stuck.
What might explain this U-shaped well-being pattern through life that is apparently found over and over? Downloadable research papers at
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On policy How should governments and social scientists (and medical scientists) respond?
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One idea Redzo and I are pursuing: It may be that humans cut back on their ‘comparing’
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The Midlife Crisis, Suicide, and Social and Economic Policy
Andrew Oswald Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science University of Warwick, UK Downloadable papers at I would like to acknowledge that these ideas come out of joint work with co-authors Ahmed Tohamy, Andrew Clark, Nick Powdthavee, David G. Blanchflower, Alex Weiss, Rainer Winkelmann, Dilip Jeste, and Steve Wu. I thank the ESRC for support.
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