The Importance of the Baby Boom Cohort and the Great Recession in Understanding Age, Period, and Cohort Patterns in Happiness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21209412 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anthony R Bardo (Department of Sociology, Duke University Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA), Anthony Bardo (0000-0003-3120-0745, Duke University, corresponding author), Scott M Lynch (0000-0002-6795-1199, Duke University), K C Land (0000-0002-9551-7314, Duke University) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 341-350 |
| Publication date | 2017-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Psychological and Personality Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1948-5506 • E-ISSN: 1948-5514 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1948550616673874 |
| PMID | 30333903 |
| OpenAlex | W2587599661 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 16 |
Twenge, Sherman, and Lyubomirsky (TSL) claim that long-term cultural changes have increased young adults’ happiness while reducing mature adults’ happiness. To establish their conclusion, TSL use trend analyses, as well as more sophisticated mixed-effects models, but their analyses are problematic. In particular, TSL’s trend analyses ignore a crucial cohort effect: well-known lower happiness among baby boomers. Furthermore, their data aggregation obscures the ephemerality of a recent period effect: the Great Recession. Finally, TSL overlook a key finding of their mixed-effects models that both pre- and post-Boomer cohorts became happier as they aged from young to mature adults. Our reanalyses of the data establish that the Baby Boomer cohort, the short-lived Great Recession, and unfortunate data aggregation account for TSL’s results. The well-established, long-term relationship between age and happiness remains as it has been for decades despite any cultural shifts that may have occurred disfavoring mature adults
Aesthetics · Baby boom · Baby boomers · Boom · Cohort · Cohort effect · Cohort study · Demographic economics · Developmental psychology · Economics · Great recession · Happiness · Keynesian economics · Population · Recession · Sociology · Well-being · Demography · Health disparities and outcomes · Medicine · Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Psychology · Social Psychology · Gerontology
Generational Changes in Materialism and Work Centrality, 1976-2007
Young people and the Great Recession
Birth and Fortune
More Happiness for Young People and Less for Mature Adults
Should age-period-cohort analysts accept innovation without scrutiny? A response to Reither, Masters, Yang, Powers, Zheng and Land
Is the apparent U-shape of well-being over the life course a result of inappropriate use of control variables? A commentary on Blanchflower and Oswald (66
A Mixed Models Approach to the Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Repeated Cross-Section Surveys, with an Application to Data on Trends in Verbal Test Scores
The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change
Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States, 1972 to 2004
A general model for the study of developmental problems
Clarifying hierarchical age-period-cohort models
Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Repeated Cross-Section Surveys
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,71 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |