America’s aging population is depressed, miserable, and just generally emotionally, psychologically, and physically weaker than people of the same age around the world. And it’s all for the exact reason you can probably deduce without having to think too hard about it.
According to research published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, Americans between 50 and 65 are getting lonelier, more depressed, and physically weaker. They’re even showing worse memory than previous generations, and they’re all much worse off than their peers in other wealthy countries.
This is measurable and based on decades of international data. Taken together, the findings indicate that Americans are trending downward across multiple indicators. Middle-aged Americans were lonelier, more depressive, had worse memories, and had far weaker grip strength than middle-aged people in, for instance, northern Europe. Even the lives of middle-aged people in countries like England and Mexico are steadily improving, while American middle-aged folks are falling precipitously.
If you guessed that literally everything about the United States is the problem here, you are correct.
Americans Experience Middle Age Differently Than the Rest of the World
The researchers say that, compared to other wealthy nations, the United States has weaker social safety nets, higher income inequality, and less investment and family support systems. Places like Germany and Sweden offer childcare subsidies, parental leave, and direct financial support from the government. Meanwhile, the United States has an “every man for himself” philosophy that hurts everyone and helps no one.
There is also the matter of healthcare. Where all these other countries have some form of public health insurance that covers most, if not all, of their citizens, the United States has a bizarre, Byzantine patchwork of wildly expensive, inconsistent private insurance systems with a few woefully underfunded public systems mixed in. There’s also the pesky little fact that so much of American insurance is tied to employment, and that many Americans who are functionally employed full-time are considered contract workers and therefore cannot get insurance through the company that is ostensibly their employer.
There are other factors at play, such as the fact that middle-aged people in other wealthy countries don’t move as often as Americans do, which prevents Americans from forming long-term ties to their local communities. And then there’s the fact that, since the US economy and job market have been hitting younger Americans especially hard, middle-aged Americans have to financially support them while also caring for their own elderly parents. Add all sorts of negative economic factors like the rising cost of housing and stagnant wages, and you’ve got a generation of middle-aged Americans who are falling apart at the seams in every conceivable way.
When you read stuff like this, it’s good to keep in mind that all of this is a choice. If it’s happening in one place and not happening in a bunch of other places, those other places clearly chose to ensure that this kind of thing cannot and should not happen on their turf. Sadly, and unfortunately, in the United States, our leaders are dead set on ensuring that it absolutely does and will continue to happen for as long as they are in control.
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