Age, Sex, and Happiness Among Men

We use pooled General Social Survey data (1989-2014) to study the effect of frequency of sexual activity on subjective wellbeing (happiness) in the U.S. Prior research has found a general positive effect. However, we do not know yet how the effect differs by gender and age group. We hypothesize that frequency of sexual activity has a larger impact on happiness for younger persons and for males. Hence, younger males should see the largest happiness increase. Furthermore, we hypothesize, that sex still remains a significant predictor of happiness among older males. In our analysis we aim to discover at what age, on average, sex ceases to be a significant predictor of happiness—we hypothesize that at some point sex is not important for happiness. Furthermore, we expect a nonlinear effect, specifically, diminishing marginal returns—having some sex rather than none is more important for happiness than having a lot of sex. Controls include race, marital status, children, perceived health, socioeconomic status, region, and place of residence. We examine whether age also conditions the effects of these variables.