IS HAPPINESS U-SHAPED IN AGE EVERYWHERE? A METHODOLOGICAL RECONSIDERATION FOR EUROPE

A recent contribution to research on age and well-being asserts that the impact of age on happiness is ‘u-shaped’ virtually everywhere. I evaluate that finding for European countries, considering whether it is robust to alternative methodological approaches. The analysis excludes control variables that are affected by age (noting that those variables are not antecedents of age) and explores the relationship via models that do not impose a quadratic functional form. The article shows that these alternative approaches do not produce a u-shape ‘everywhere’: u-shapes are evident for some countries, but for others, the pattern is quite different.