People with a stronger sense of purpose in life live longer on average, as demonstrated in two large studies with a follow-up of 12 to 23 years. This represents a robust statistical association, but not a proven causal relationship.
Two large American long-term studies (the HRS and MIDUS studies), involving nearly 6,000 participants and a follow-up of 12 to 23 years, show that people with a stronger sense of purpose in life live longer on average. This association held up after the researchers accounted for age, sex, health and other factors that influence life expectancy.
This is explicitly a statistical association, not proven causality. In other words: people with a sense of purpose live longer on average, but the studies do not prove that purpose itself is the cause of that longer lifespan. Other factors linked to both purpose and health may play a role.
Purpose in life also appears to act as a kind of buffer. People who rated their own health as poor but at the same time had a strong sense of purpose died less prematurely than people who rated their health equally poorly without that sense of purpose. This protective effect was found in most ethnic groups in the research, but not among Black participants in the MIDUS study. That is an important caveat that the researchers themselves highlight.
Finally, it is noteworthy that purpose in life predicts lifespan somewhat better than life satisfaction (the feeling that life is going well). When both were measured simultaneously, life satisfaction largely lost its predictive power, whereas purpose in life did not. This suggests that it is specifically about having a direction and meaning, and not simply about having a positive feeling regarding life.
Based on two observational cohort studies (PMID 38358729 and 37372758) with large sample sizes and long follow-up. No randomised studies are available; causality has not been demonstrated.