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Solving for Gen-X: High Achievers and the New Midlife Crisis

Solving for Gen-X: High Achievers and the New Midlife Crisis

The complaints of privileged, middle- and upper-middle class people are easy to dismiss as #FirstWorldProblems. Women are closing the wage gap. Men do more at home. Fine. And yet, a 2009 analysis of General Social Survey data showed that women's happiness "declined both absolutely and relative to men" from the early 1970s to the mid-2000s. More than one in five women are on antidepressants. And nearly 60 percent of Gen Xers—women and men—describe themselves as stressed out. Is this midlife crisis truly a crisis among some of the world's most fortunate people? If so, what caused it and how do women and men find their way out?

Moderator
Jennifer Deal
Senior Research Scientist, Center for Creative Leadership

Speakers
Ada Calhoun
Author, "Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give"

Matthew Hennessey
Associate Editorial Page Features Editor, The Wall Street Journal

Susan Krauss Whitbourne
Professor Emerita of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Faculty Fellow, Institute of Gerontology, University of Massachusetts Boston

Danica Lo
Digital Director, Food & Wine

Published