Middle age was a good time to be alive. It brings stress and bad health to people with lower levels of education. The images were taken by Mike Harrington.
Middle age was a good time to be alive. It brings stress and bad health to people with lower levels of education. The images are from Mike Harrington.
It used to be a good time to enjoy the fruits of years of work and parenting. That is not the case in the US.
Deaths of despair and chronic pain have increased over the past decade. Middle-aged adults today report more stress and poorer physical health than they did in the 1990s. The trends are most pronounced for people who have less education.
COVID-19's imprint promises to further increase the suffering despite the trends preclude the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline in the health and well-being of middle-aged adults in the U.S. raises two important questions: to what extent is this confined to the U.S., and will COVID-19 impact future trends?
The study that I and my colleagues published in mid 2021, which is currently in press, provides insights into how U.S. middle-aged adults are faring in relation to their counterparts in other nations. Our study looked at the health, well-being and memory of middle-aged adults in the U.S. and compared them to middle-aged adults in Australia, Germany, South Korea and Mexico.
The US is an outlier.
We compared people who were born in the 1930s to the 1960s in terms of their health and well-being, as well as their memory in midlife.
There were stark differences between nations. The U.S. had a general pattern of decline. Americans born in the 1950s and 1960s experienced declines in well-being and memory in middle age compared to those born in the 1930s and 1940s. A pattern was found for Australian adults.
In Germany, South Korea and Mexico, each successive cohort reported improvements in well-being and memory. The health of Americans born in the 1950s and 1960s was slower than their counterparts in other countries, suggesting that they did not improve as quickly as they could have.
Middle-aged Americans are experiencing declines in key outcomes, whereas other nations are showing improvements. Policies that could help alleviate the long-term effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic can be found in our cross-national approach.
Will COVID-19 make troubling trends worse?
Initial research on the effects of COVID-19 is telling.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of life. Every sphere of existence has experienced earthquakes. In the U.S., job loss and instability rose, household financial fragility and lack of emergency savings have been spotlighted, and children fell behind in school.
The focus at the start of the Pandemic was on the safety of older adults. Older adults were most vulnerable to the risks posed by COVID-19. The mental health risks and long-haul effects will likely differ across age groups, but older adults were at higher risk.
Young adults and middle-aged adults are showing the most vulnerability in their well-being. Studies show that younger adults are reporting more psychological distress and stressors than older adults. COVID-19 has made inequalities worse. Women are more likely to leave the workforce.
midlife views and experiences
midlife expectations are shifting. Middle-aged adults in the U.S. are facing more parenting pressures than ever before, in the form of engagement in extracurricular activities and pressures for their children to succeed in school. Student loan debt and a historically challenging labor and housing market have led to a record number of young adults moving back home with their parents.
Middle-aged adults need to take on more care of their elderly parents and other family members while continuing with full-time work and taking care of school-aged children because of the gains in life expectancy. There is no federal mandated program for paid family leave that could cover the birth or adoption of a child. A report by the AARP estimated that there were 53 million caregivers in 2020.
The restructuring of corporate America has led to less investment in employee development. Employees have less power and input. There are notable gaps in health care coverage. High numbers of people are under insured, which leads to more out-of-pocket expenses that eat up monthly budgets and financially strain households. President Biden's executive order for a special period of health care marketplace exchange until August 15, 2021, promises to bring some relief to those in need.
Promoting a prosperous midlife.
Our cross-national approach gives us the chance to explore ways to reverse the U.S. disadvantage and promote resilience for middle-aged adults.
The nations we studied have different family and work policies. In countries such as Germany,Denmark and Sweden, paid parental leave and subsidized child care help relieve the stress and financial strain of parenting. Research shows that well-being is higher for parents and non parents in nations with more generous family leave policies.
Employees can take time off to care for an ailing family member in countries with ample paid sick and vacation days. It is important that laid off employees have the resources available to stay on their feet.
Health insurance is usually tied to one's employment in the U.S. 5 million people in the US lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs.
Policy measures were passed by the U.S. government to aid people and businesses. The U.S. approved a number of measures to boost the economy, including the creation of a payroll protection program for small businesses, the expansion of unemployment benefits, and the ability to claim forbearance for various forms of debt and housing payments. Recent findings show that material hardship declined and well-being improved when the checks were distributed.
I think these programs are a good start, but they need to be expanded if there is any hope of reversing the troubling trends and promoting resilience in middle-aged Americans. A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concluded that paid family leave has a wide range of benefits, including helping women stay in the workforce, assisting businesses in recruiting skilled workers, and addressing health, racial and gender inequalities. The effects of family leave policies on well-being are shown in research from Germany and the United Kingdom.
Middle-aged adults are the glue that holds society together. They constitute large segments of the workforce and have to bridge younger and older generations. Ensuring their success, productivity, health and well-being through various programs will have cascading effects on their families and society as a whole.
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The Conversation is a news site that shares ideas from academic experts. Frank J. Infurna is a professor at Arizona State University.
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