Unmet Aspirations as an Explanation for the Age U-shape in Human Wellbeing

Hannes Schwandt

No 7604, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A large literature in behavioral and social sciences has found that human wellbeing follows a U-shape over age. Some theories have assumed that the U-shape is caused by unmet expectations that are felt painfully in midlife but beneficially abandoned and experienced with less regret during old age. In a unique panel of 132,609 life satisfaction expectations matched to subsequent realizations, I find people to err systematically in predicting their life satisfaction over the life cycle. They expect – incorrectly – increases in young adulthood and decreases during old age. These errors are large, ranging from 9.8% at age 21 to -4.5% at age 68, they are stable over time and observed across socio-economic groups. These findings support theories that unmet expectations drive the age U-shape in wellbeing.

Keywords: life satisfaction; expectations; aging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 D84 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem and nep-hap
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2016, 122, 75-87

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7604.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Unmet Aspirations as an Explanation for the Age U-Shape in Human Wellbeing (2013)
Working Paper: Unmet Aspirations as an Explanation for the Age U-Shape in Human Wellbeing (2013)
Working Paper: Unmet aspirations as an explanation for the age u-shape in human wellbeing (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7604

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().