{"doi":"10.1126/sciadv.ado0952","title":"Subjective well-being across the life course among non-industrialized populations","abstract":"Subjective well-being (SWB) is often described as being U-shaped over adulthood, declining to a midlife slump and then improving thereafter. Improved SWB in later adulthood has been considered a paradox given age-related declines in health and social losses. While SWB has mostly been studied in high-income countries, it remains largely unexplored in rural subsistence populations lacking formal institutions that reliably promote social welfare. Here, we evaluate the age profile of SWB among three small-scale subsistence societies ( n = 468; study 1), forest users from 23 low-income countries ( n = 6987; study 2), and Tsimane’ horticulturalists ( n = 1872; study 3). Across multiple specifications, we find variability in SWB age profiles. In some cases, we find no age-related differences in SWB or even inverted U-shapes. Adjusting for confounders reduces observed age effects. Our findings highlight variability in average well-being trajectories over the life course. Ensuring successful aging will require a greater focus on cultural and socioecological determinants of individual trajectories.","journal":"Science Advances","year":2024,"id":430823,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.955,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1234656,"name":"Yoann Buoro","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":890446,"name":"Daniel Eid Rodríguez","orcid":"0000-0001-8145-0967","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1234187,"name":"M. Katherine Sayre","orcid":"0000-0003-2554-4058","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":528726,"name":"Benjamin C. Trumble","orcid":"0000-0003-3201-0628","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1234188,"name":"Aili Pyhälä","orcid":"0000-0001-7095-5994","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":528727,"name":"Hillard Kaplan","orcid":"0000-0002-7398-7358","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1053234,"name":"Arild Angelsen","orcid":"0000-0002-6037-6849","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":528724,"name":"Jonathan Stieglitz","orcid":"0000-0001-5985-9643","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1234189,"name":"Victoria Reyes‐García","orcid":"0000-0002-2914-8055","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":356874,"name":"Michael Gurven","orcid":"0000-0002-5661-527X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":73,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:59:20.861374Z","pmid":"39441925","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}