HAPPINESS, HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY

Professor Andrew Oswald, Warwick Business School

The current economic crisis is certainly a cause of stress for many of us at the moment. But is there a more general trend - are we more anxious now than our parents were at the same age? A new report from counselling charity Relate suggests that people are suffering from 'mid-life crises' at a much earlier age. Professor Andrew Oswald, WBS, has been analysing the links between health, happiness and productivity.

A new report issued by Relate, the counselling charity, finds that people are suffering from ‘mid-life crises’ earlier than before, hitting people in the age range of 35-44 and not just those in late forties/early fifties. They found that 20 percent of that group have suffered from depression and the same amount ‘feel lonely a lot of the time’. Some of the suffering individuals put this down to long working hours and consequently not spending enough time with their family.

Andrew Oswald, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, has recently been analysing the causal links between happiness, health and productivity. He has found that the levels of psychological stress have risen significantly since the early ‘90s. At the same time the proportion of those in high-strain jobs has gone up. A typical person’s happiness declines throughout their early adulthood before rising again when they enter into old-age. It cannot be concluded, however, that there is a simple link between stressful jobs and unhappiness. The state of the nation has an impact as well. It is a well reported result that average happiness does not increase with GDP, but is better correlated with how equitable a society is.

Moving on from the causes, Prof Oswald is thinking critically about how stress is impacting our health and productivity. To find out more take a look at the presentation slides and listen to the audio recording from Prof Oswald's lecture: Happiness, Health and Productivity.