A child playing with his grandfather.

It turns out the golden years really are golden. Eye-opening new research finds the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The two go hand-in-hand: Being social can help keep away the blues.
“The good news is that with age comes happiness,“ said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. “Life gets better in one’s perception as one ages.“
A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said, AP reported.
This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University aging expert Linda George. An older person may realize “it’s fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner.“
George, who was not involved in the new study, believes the research is important because people tend to think that “late life is far from the best stage of life, and they don’t look forward to it.“
Yang’s findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28,000 people ages 18 to 88 took part.
There were ups and downs in overall happiness levels during the study, generally corresponding with good and bad economic times. But at every stage, older Americans were the happiest.
While younger blacks and poor people tended to be less happy than whites and wealthier people, those differences faded as people aged.
In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age.
Overall, about 33 percent of Americans reported being very happy at age 88, versus about 24 percent of those age 18 to their early 20s. And throughout the study years, most Americans reported being very happy or pretty happy. Less than 20 percent said they were not too happy.
A separate University of Chicago study found that about 75 percent of people aged 57 to 85 engage in one or more social activities at least every week. Those include socializing with neighbors, attending religious services, volunteering or going to group meetings.
Those in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to do at least one of these activities.
“People’s social circles do tend to shrink a little as they age--that is mainly where that stereotype comes from, but that image of the isolated elderly really falls apart when we broaden our definition of what social connection is,“ said study co-author Benjamin Cornwell, also a University of Chicago researcher.
Previous research also has shown that mid-life tends to be the most stressful time, said Cornell University sociologist Elaine Wethington. “Everyone’s asking you to do things and you have a lot to do. You’re less happy because you feel hassled.“
The new studies show “if you can make it through that,“ there’s light at the end of the tunnel, Wethington said.

More than one German in five works in the “low wage“ category, a slightly higher rate than in Britain but below that in the United States, a press report said.
The left-of-centre Frankfurter Rundshau quoted researcher Gerhard Bosch as saying the trend was “worrying.“
“The conclusions for Germany are worrying,“ said Bosch, who is director of the Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ) at the university in Duisburg-Essen, AFP reported.
The IAQ participated in a study carried out in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States.
In Germany, the number of people considered to be earning low wages increased from 15 percent to 22 percent over the past 10 years, reaching a total of 6.5 million people.
The rate for Britain was 21.7 percent while in the United States, 25 percent of workers were categorized by the study as low-wage earners.
Denmark showed the lowest level at 8.5 percent. The IAQ also found that Germany had “extremely low salaries, less than five euros ($7.95) an hour,“ that were paid to around two million people, the press report said.
“We did not expect such an unflattering result for Germany,“ it quoted the IAQ study as saying.
On the institute’s website it nonetheless noted that “while both Germany and the US have large shares of low-wage workers, German workers receive health insurance, four weeks of paid vacation, and generous old age support-benefits most low-wage workers in the US can only dream of.“
Europe’s biggest economy is in the midst of a debate over extending a new minimum wage for postal workers to other sectors.
That would represent a sea change in a country where such questions are normally settled between unions and management representatives rather than by state intervention.
Unions and part of the German left support setting a general minimum wage, while economists and many on the right oppose such a move.
Six German economic institutes warned that a minimum wage of even 4.5 euros per hour would result in the loss of jobs for unskilled workers.

The National Museums of Kenya announced a fresh attempt to convince UNESCO to elevate the country’s coastal forest shrines as a World Heritage list in a bid to preserve them.
This will be Kenya’s second bid at the July conference in Quebec to have the coastal Mijikenda community forests--called Kaya or homestead--listed after a first attempt flopped at the 2007 World Congress on Heritage.
“We are optimistic that our Kayas will join the list of 800 other recognized World Heritage sites all over the world,“ said NMK Director General Idle Farah.
“The listing would help open up gates for financial assistance for conservation from major international conservation bodies like World Nature Conservation and World Wildlife Fund,“ he added.