Life Satisfaction across the Life Course: Evaluations of the Most and Least Satisfying Decades of Life

In a recent American study, the decades from ages 20 to 59 were most frequently chosen to be the most satisfying. However, one third of the elderly evaluated a decade in old age to be the most satisfying (Field, 1996). The present study was undertaken to investigate whether this finding could be replicated in a larger, representative sample of elderly Danes. Four cohorts born with an interval of five years, 62 to 77 years old (N = 3207) were asked to point out the most and the least satisfying decades of life. The years from 30 to 39 were most frequently chosen as the most satisfying decade, followed by the adjoining decades. A decade in old age was chosen as the least satisfying by 24% of the participants, while only 8.5% of the participants evaluated old age as the most satisfying period of life. Further analyses were made to examine conditions related to evaluating the present decade as the most or the least satisfying.