New research has discovered that the happiest Americans are the oldest Americans, and that older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests.

According to the Associated Press, a University of Chicago study of Americans surveyed since 1972 suggest that plenty of older people are quite happy, with more than half of black men and women over the age of 80 saying they’re “very happy,” with older white men and women following suit.

“The good news is that with age comes happiness,” said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. “Life gets better in one’s perception as one ages.”

Yang says a certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, AP reported.

The findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28,000 people ages 18 to 88 took part.

There were ups and downs in overall happiness levels during the study, generally corresponding with good and bad economic times. But at every stage, older Americans were the happiest, according to AP.

While younger blacks and poor people tended to be less happy than whites and wealthier people, those differences faded as people aged. In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age.

Overall, about 33 percent of Americans reported being very happy at age 88, versus about 24 percent of those age 18 to their early 20s. And throughout the study years, most Americans reported being very happy or pretty happy. Less than 20 percent said they were not too happy.

A separate University of Chicago study found that about 75 percent of people aged 57 to 85 engage in one or more social activities at least every week. Those include socializing with neighbors, attending religious services, volunteering or going to group meetings.

Those in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to do at least one of these activities.

Both studies appear in April’s American Sociological Review.