So I did a fair bit more research on this subject for a post I’m writing on it, and from what I can tell, that Blanchflower study you mentioned is making the exact mistake Bartram points out, and if you use controls correctly, the u-shape only shows up in a few countries.
This study by Kratz and Brüderl is very interesting—it points out four potential causes of bias in the age-happiness literature and make their own study without those biases, finding a constant downwards slope in happiness. I think they miss the second-biggest issue, though (after overcontrol bias): there is constant confusion between different happiness measures, as I described in my post above, and that really matters when studying a subject with effects this small.
If I ever have time, I’m planning on doing some kind of small meta-analysis, taking the five or so biggest unbiased studies in the field. I’d have to learn some more stats first, though :)
So I did a fair bit more research on this subject for a post I’m writing on it, and from what I can tell, that Blanchflower study you mentioned is making the exact mistake Bartram points out, and if you use controls correctly, the u-shape only shows up in a few countries.
This study by Kratz and Brüderl is very interesting—it points out four potential causes of bias in the age-happiness literature and make their own study without those biases, finding a constant downwards slope in happiness. I think they miss the second-biggest issue, though (after overcontrol bias): there is constant confusion between different happiness measures, as I described in my post above, and that really matters when studying a subject with effects this small.
If I ever have time, I’m planning on doing some kind of small meta-analysis, taking the five or so biggest unbiased studies in the field. I’d have to learn some more stats first, though :)