Why middle-aged men are most miserable?

In its first large survey into the nation's well-being, the ONS found that men aged between 45 and 49 were the least satisfied with their lives and had the lowest levels of happiness.

Middle-aged men are the unhappiest members of British society, while pensioners and teenagers enjoy life the most, research from the Office for National Statistics shows. In its first large

survey into the nation's well-being, the ONS found that men aged between 45 and 49 were the least satisfied with their lives and had the lowest levels of happiness. Work stress, high

mortgage payments, young children and the prospect of at least 15 more years of work until their retirement contribute to middle-aged men's gloom, experts said. The ONS found that men

and women aged between 65 and 80 were most satisfied with their lives. This was followed closely by teenagers aged between 16 and 19. "The findings prove that the mid-life crisis is not

a myth," said Saamah Abdallah, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation think tank. In the first survey of its kind, the ONS questioned 80,000 people about their happiness,

satisfaction, anxiety levels and feelings of worth. Respondents were asked to rate how they felt on a scale of one to 10. On average, men aged between 45 and 49 rated their happiness at just

6.9 out of 10, the lowest of any age group of either gender. The happiness rating of men aged between 65 and 69 was at 7.8. The development of a survey to measure the nation's

happiness was one of David Cameron's aims before he came to office. Before the 2010 election, he said: "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money and

it's time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB - general well-being." The survey, which did not take income into account, found that those who lived in London or the West Midlands

were the least happy. They also valued the worth of what they did less than people in other regions. This was despite London being the richest part of the country by some distance. The

happiest place and also the area with the highest levels of life satisfaction and feelings of worth, was Northern Ireland, the ONS found. In terms of the general outlook on life, the ONS

found that women routinely put higher worth on the things they did than men. Women were also found to be happier than men in most age groups. This changed when men reached retirement age.

Once they hit 65, men were found to become slightly happier than women. The survey also found that married couples had higher levels of "life satisfaction" than those who

cohabited. Cohabiting couples were happier than single people. In terms of children, couples with two or four children had higher feelings of worth than those with one, three or five.

Parents were happiest and less stressed when their offspring were below the age of one. The trickiest years in terms of anxiety were when children were aged between 11 and 16.