The concept of the midlife crisis is part of the common lexicon. But did you know it was thought to occur at around age 35?
Naomi Wynter-Vincent, assistant professor in innovation and English at Northeastern University in London, has been exploring the origins of the midlife crisis and whether the 60-year-old idea stands up to present-day scrutiny.
The term midlife crisis was coined by Elliott Jaques, a Canadian psychoanalyst, social scientist and management consultant who moved to Britain after World War II.
He first defined it in a paper, “Death And The Midlife Crisis,” which was published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1965.
It unpacked, through a study of famous creative people in history, from Dante to Renaissance artists, how their style of work changed or declined in productivity between their mid- to late-30s.
The term would eventually pass into popular culture, conjuring up images of drastic career changes and impulse purchases of flash sports cars as people reassess their lives around its midpoint.
Wynter-Vincent, in a paper presented at the Haunted Modernities, Present Pasts and Spectral Futures conference — hosted by Falmouth University in Cornwall, England, and co-sponsored by Northeastern University — analyzed whether Jaques’ theory still stands up in a world where people are living longer.
“Jaques was drawing on the three-score-and-ten biblical notion of the lifespan being roughly 70 years and that, therefore, the midlife crisis might emerge at around age 35,” says Wynter-Vincent.
“He does say that it can depend and it is not like you turn 35 and bang, that’s when it necessarily happens. But I think even still, that idea of midlife hits differently in 2025 in terms of people’s life trajectories. People tend to start families later. People tend to be buying houses later — if they can ever afford to do that — and people are retiring later. I suspect that 35 isn’t what you think of as being midlife for most people in the U.K. and the U.S.”
There are limitations that Wynter-Vincent found when examining Jaques’ work for her own presentation, titled “Remember you must turn thirty-five: ‘Death and the Midlife Crisis’ revisited, sixty years on.”
Firstly, she says, Jaques’ data “is not great” in that his theory stems from examining the “works of great men” and how their creativity changed in their mid-30s, rather than carrying out his own study.
That in turn leads to the next problem — his argument was almost entirely focused on male workers, with what Wynter-Vincent says was only a cursory mention of how female careers ebb and flow through periods of child-rearing and biological change, such as perimenopause.
To add to all that, the midlife crisis concept is “not very well supported” empirically. “The theory is interesting,” adds Wynter-Vincent, “but the idea of this being a thing that everyone hits at age 35, the data on that is not really clear.”
But what fascinated Wynter-Vincent after delving into Jaques’ original paper was how it was as much about the creativity involved with reaching the median age of life expectancy as it was with the associated crisis.
“What he’s saying is that prior to the midlife crisis, creativity is this hot-from-the-fire kind of thing,” she continues. “It comes out all in one big flash, and it’s all fully formed. He describes this as ‘precipitate creativity’ in the way that it just hurls itself out there.
“And then he says that there’s something about midlife — the recognition and reality of death, coming to terms with the fact that your life will have a natural end, that there is a hard limit. And what emerges from that is what he calls a ‘sculpted creativity’ that has a different quality.”
Jaques, she continues, puts forward that a “more mature” form of creativity comes out of the transition from early to middle life.
But she points out that even the concept of recognizing death as a natural limit to people’s ability to work and be creative is being challenged in our current society.
She highlights the likes of Bryan Johnson and his Don’t Die movement. The 48-year-old American multimillionaire reportedly spends $2 million a year on staying youthful and, via a Netflix documentary about his efforts, has argued that the rest of society should be doing the same.
Johnson told The Guardian in an interview this year: “Death is always inevitable, but I’m asking this question: Are we the first generation that won’t die?”
Only last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin was heard telling Chinese leader Xi Jinping that organ transplant technology was becoming so advanced that “people can get younger, perhaps even immortal.”
Wynter-Vincent questions whether those who are attempting to push the boundaries of human life expectancy would be able to relate to Jaques’ midlife theory.
But extreme sections of society aside, Wynter-Vincent thinks there is still plenty to take away from Jaques’ original argument.
“I think culturally everyone’s fixated on the crisis,” she says. “But I think what Jaques actually is talking about is what happens afterwards and saying that there is this different but extremely interesting, worthwhile, thoughtful creativity that emerges from this reckoning with death or this reckoning with limits.
“And actually realizing that you have limits doesn’t just have to shut you down — it actually imbues life with more purpose. We’ve tended to focus on the bad thing but actually that there is something quite positive that he is trying to describe.”
Written by Patrick Daly/ Northeastern University.
