--- title: Money Happiness: Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group description: Income strongly correlates with life satisfaction for middle-age people and weakly correlates for older people and young adults. canonical: https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-29T20:09:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:40.489Z article:section: Health og:title: Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group og:description: Income strongly correlates with life satisfaction for middle-age people and weakly correlates for older people and young adults. og:url: https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7bc49d8c8eea714c/698778933c16392a22451052/money-dollar-bills-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group twitter:description: Income strongly correlates with life satisfaction for middle-age people and weakly correlates for older people and young adults. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7bc49d8c8eea714c/698778933c16392a22451052/money-dollar-bills-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Jan 29, 2015 8:09 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Jan 29, 2015 8:09 PM UTC Can money buy you happiness? It might depend on your stage of life, finds a new [study](http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0038682) in the journal _Psychology and Aging_. The link between life satisfaction and income is strongest in 30-50 year-olds, while it’s only weakly correlated in older people and young adults, the study shows. Researchers looked at life satisfaction survey data from more than 40,000 people in Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, taken over the course of many years. The results were consistent in all three regions. People in the middle of their lives likely value income because of increased financial responsibilities, including the need to support a family, the study authors say. Young adults may place less value on income because of support from their parents, and older people are more likely to have resources outside of income like retirement savings, they explain. Other [research](http://time.com/money/3680465/happiness-and-money-study/) has suggested that money doesn’t do anything to make people happy, and, if it does, its influence is fairly subtle. But this study suggests that looking at the aggregate data without teasing out different age groups won’t necessarily provide the most relevant view. “Our findings suggest that if money does buy happiness, it does so to different degrees for different people,” the study says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/"},"headline":"Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group","datePublished":"2015-01-29T20:09:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:40.489Z","description":"Money may mean the most in midlife","url":"https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/","keywords":["Mental Health/Psychology","Living","Money","Aging","Happiness","Research","health"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7bc49d8c8eea714c/698778933c16392a22451052/money-dollar-bills-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7bc49d8c8eea714c/698778933c16392a22451052/money-dollar-bills-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills","caption":"TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/mental-healthpsychology/","name":"Mental Health/Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3687865/income-age-happiness/","name":"Income Matters Most to People in This Age Group"}}]}] ```