Abstract
Using the National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences, we investigate age effects on happiness, satisfaction, and stress. The age effect in a single cross-section confounds the age effect with the cohort effect. Without cohort and year effects, the age effect on happiness and satisfaction is U-shaped with the nadir located in the 40s and the age effect on stress is downward sloping, which means we become less stressful as we get older. With cohort and year effects, however, the age effect on happiness is downward sloping and the age effect on stress is upward sloping, while the age effect on satisfaction remains U-shaped. When we explicitly consider each trend of effects, the age effect on happiness is U-shaped and the age effect on stress is an inverted U-shaped.
