研究顯示 熬過40歲工作越來越順心

It is a popular internet thing to focus on the upside of being in your 30s, and it is nice to know how to do basic modern-human-being things like paying your taxes and cooking a simple meal. But it can be a less-rosy story at work: People in their late 20s to early 40s tend to report lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of emotional exhaustion than other age groups, according to new research.

人們喜歡在網上關注30歲后的種種好事。30歲以后，你會掌握各種現代人類必備基本技能，比如說如何納稅和做煎蛋飯菜。但是在工作上事情就不那么美好了：根據最新研究顯示，相對于其他年齡段的人，將近30到40出頭這個年齡段的人普遍感到工作滿意度較低、情緒衰竭度較高。

There's the obvious reason: These tend to be the ages that people have young children at home, and the researchers did find that this group reported feeling increasingly crunched for time. But adding to that pressure, co-worker support also tends to dissipate at this age. BPS Research Digest interprets the findings:

一個顯而易見的原因是：處于這一年齡段的人往往負擔著養育幼子的責任——該研究發現，這些人群往往感到時間上越來越有壓迫感。不僅如此，在這一年齡段，同事間的合作關系也開始渙散。英國心理學會博客對這一現象作出了如下解釋：

Support from co-workers probably dips in midlife as peers compete for scarce resources （promotion bottlenecks are often encountered during this career stage）。 Also, whereas younger counterparts are often hungry to forge new social networks, and older workers seek identity-affirming work experiences in their remaining tenure, midlifers find it demanding enough just to maintain existing social networks. Meanwhile, time pressure likely intensifies mid-career as colleagues try to leverage one's knowledge and experience.

在中年時期，同志之間為了爭奪稀缺資源（在這個職場階段，許多人會遭遇升職瓶頸），對彼此的支持程度很可能降低。不僅如此，年輕一輩的職員在饑渴的構建新的社交人脈網絡，老一輩的職員則是在任職的中間階段探尋維護自己的職場地位的方法，如此一來，對這些中年人來說，要維持現有的社交人脈網絡就已經夠受的了。與此同時，由于其他同事竭力凸顯自己的學識和資歷，這些中年職員還會感到時間上的壓迫感越來越強烈。

But the good news is that after about a decade of suck, things start to pick back up again. Occupational psychologists say that happiness at work recovers when people reach their 40s, and that people in their 50s are more satisfied with their jobs than any other age group. Hang in there, 30-somethings — soon you will be old（er）， but at least work will suck less!

但是，好消息是在十年艱苦的日子之后，這種狀況就會好轉起來。職業心理學家稱，到人們四十幾歲的時候，對工作的滿意程度就會恢復，而五十多歲的人對自己的工作比任何其他年齡層的人都滿意。堅持住，而立之年的人們——很快你們會變老，但至少生活不會這么糟糕了！