The Promotion Came Through in March. By June You Were Asking, Is This It?

Evidence Review · The Reading Room, Vol. 127 · 9 min read · what half a million people told economists about the middle of life, and why the women’s version rarely looks like a sports car

The midlife crisis has a cartoon version: a man, a convertible, a younger girlfriend. Women in their late forties rarely recognise themselves in it, so they assume whatever they are feeling must be something else. The research says the dip is real, it is measurable in both sexes, and in women it usually looks like quiet questioning rather than a dramatic purchase.

The short answer: a midlife crisis in women is usually a period of questioning identity, purpose and the shape of the years ahead, often set off by a life event rather than by age alone. The underlying dip is real: in data on more than 500,000 people, well-being fell to its lowest point in middle age for both men and women before rising again.¹ It is common, it is not a diagnosis, and for most people it passes. What you do during it matters more than whether you name it.

The promotion came through in March. By any outside measure she had arrived: the title she had wanted since her thirties, the corner of the floor with the window, the salary that finally made the numbers comfortable. In June she found herself standing in the kitchen at eleven at night, holding a mug of tea gone cold, thinking a sentence she had never thought before. Is this it? Not unhappy, exactly. Just aware, suddenly and completely, that the road ahead was shorter than the road behind, and that she was not sure she had chosen most of it.

Her husband, when she tried to say it, asked if she was depressed. She said no. She did not have a better word.

Jump to: Is it real · What it looks like in women · Why it happens · When it’s more than a crisis · The two-list review · Questions women actually ask

Is the midlife crisis real?

For years psychologists were sceptical. Surveys in the 1990s found that when people said they had had a midlife crisis, they usually meant a hard event that happened to fall in midlife: a divorce, a redundancy, a parent’s illness. One researcher concluded that midlife did not appear to be a time of out-of-the-ordinary distress.²

Then the economists arrived with larger datasets. In 2008 David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald analysed well-being data on more than half a million randomly sampled Americans and Western Europeans. Holding income, education, marriage and employment constant, they found that a typical person’s happiness reaches its minimum in middle age, on both sides of the Atlantic and for both men and women.¹ The pattern appeared across dozens of countries.¹

In 2022 Oswald and colleagues went further and looked for harder evidence than people’s own ratings. In data covering hundreds of thousands of people, they found hill-shaped patterns peaking in midlife for sleep problems, disabling headaches, severe job strain, concentration and memory difficulties, depression and anxiety.² Being in midlife roughly doubled the probability of depression compared with being under 25 or aged 65 to 74.²

So both camps were partly right. Very few people go through a dramatic, age-triggered breakdown. Very many go through a measurable, quieter dip.

What does a midlife crisis look like in women?

Rarely like the cartoon. The women who write to this journal describe it in quieter sentences. Restlessness in a life that looks fine. A sudden intolerance for things that used to be bearable: the colleague, the commute, the version of yourself that agrees to everything. Grief, sometimes, for paths not taken. A pull towards something, often without knowing what.

There is also a reason it so often hits high achievers at the moment of arrival. For twenty years the question “what next?” had an answer: the next role, the next milestone. When the milestone is reached, the question returns with nothing to fill it. We looked at a close cousin of this feeling in I don’t know what I want anymore.

A midlife reckoning is often a reckoning with load: how much of your week was chosen, and how much simply accumulated. Seeing it on one page is a good place to start. Start here.

Why does the midlife dip happen?

Nobody fully knows, and the honest answer has several parts. The U-shape holds after accounting for income, marriage and employment, so it is not simply the money or the marriage.¹ Researchers have suggested a mix: adjusting expectations downward as some youthful ambitions become unrealistic, the peak weight of responsibilities to children, parents and work arriving at once, and, later, a growing appreciation of what you have as time feels more limited.

For women in their late forties and fifties, two more layers often arrive together. Perimenopause can disturb sleep and mood, and the caring load frequently peaks, with teenagers or young adults at one end and ageing parents at the other. Neither causes a crisis on its own. Both lower the margin you have for asking big questions calmly.

When is it more than a midlife crisis?

When it stops being questioning and becomes persistent low mood. The 2022 research found a real midlife rise in depression and anxiety, so this is not a remote possibility.² Signs it is time to see a doctor: low mood or loss of interest most days for two weeks or more, sleep and appetite changing, feeling worthless, or thoughts that life is not worth living. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 in the United States, or your local emergency number, today.

Perimenopause can also produce symptoms that look like either. We set out how to tell the patterns apart in perimenopause or depression, and the burnout version in it lifts on the second day of the holiday, or it doesn’t.

How do you get through a midlife crisis as a woman?

By treating the restlessness as information rather than a symptom to suppress or a signal to blow everything up. The practice here is the two-list review, and it takes one quiet hour.

On the first list, write everything that currently takes your time and energy each week, the work and the home, the obligations and the habits. On the second, write what you would want the next ten years to contain if nobody else’s expectations counted: people, work, places, skills, a pace. Then put a mark next to each item on the first list. A tick if you would choose it again today. A cross if you would not. A question mark if you do not know.

Most women find more question marks than crosses, which is reassuring: it means the answer is usually adjustment, not demolition. Pick one cross to reduce and one item from the second list to start, small, within a month. Midlife research points to the dip lifting over time for most people.¹ A deliberate small change means you shape where it lifts to.

If the restlessness is mostly about work, the next piece is worth reading before any resignation: the year you lost is not missing, it is just not on the CV.

Questions women actually ask about this

What are the signs of a midlife crisis in a woman?

Common signs include restlessness in a life that looks fine, questioning past choices, a sudden intolerance for things that used to be bearable, grief for paths not taken and a strong urge for change. In women it is often internal and quiet rather than marked by dramatic outward behaviour.

At what age do women have a midlife crisis?

There is no fixed age. In large European data, well-being reached its low point at around 47 for women; in US data the low point for women came earlier.¹ Many women describe the questioning in their mid-forties to mid-fifties, often set off by a life event.

Is a midlife crisis real or a myth?

The dramatic version is uncommon, but the underlying dip is real. Studies of more than 500,000 people found well-being lowest in middle age for both sexes, and later research found midlife peaks in depression, sleep problems and job strain.¹²

How long does a midlife crisis last?

It varies, from months to a few years. Research on the U-shape suggests well-being tends to rise again after middle age.¹ Low mood that lasts most days for more than two weeks is a reason to see a doctor rather than wait it out.

For the larger idea underneath much of this, that the stories your mind tells you about your life are not always facts, start with our guide: you have been right for thirty years.

On the research. The U-shape is an average across very large groups and does not predict any one person’s path; some researchers dispute its size or its cause. The 2022 paper is a discussion paper and its measures come from several different national datasets. The two-list review is a practical exercise, not a tested intervention.

References
1. Blanchflower DG, Oswald AJ. Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle? Social Science & Medicine. 2008;66(8):1733–1749.
2. Giuntella O, McManus S, Mujcic R, Oswald AJ, Powdthavee N, Tohamy A. The Midlife Crisis. IZA Discussion Paper No. 15533. 2022.

Written by Tomasz Nowak for Blue Leaf Journal.