People with no children are happier
From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think. Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. … As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns. But some of the studies are grimmer than others. Robin Simon, a sociologist at Wake Forest University, says parents are more depressed than nonparents no matter what their circumstances—whether they’re single or married, whether they have one child or four.
The idea that parents are less happy than nonparents has become so commonplace in academia that it was big news last year when the Journal of Happiness Studies published a Scottish paper declaring the opposite was true. “Contrary to much of the literature,” said the introduction, “our results are consistent with an effect of children on life satisfaction that is positive, large and increasing in the number of children.” Alas, the euphoria was short-lived. A few months later, the poor author discovered a coding error in his data, and the publication ran an erratum. “After correcting the problem,” it read, “the main results of the paper no longer hold. The effect of children on the life satisfaction of married individuals is small, often negative, and never statistically significant.”
Continues at New York magazine: http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/
The obvious explanations for this are either:
a) people think children will make them happy but they don’t
b) people know children won’t make them happy but choose them because happiness is not the thing they prize most
What would be really interesting is to research why either (or both) of these might be the case…
As a woman of childbearing age with no children and no plans for any in the near future, this research is useful in my arsenal for use against the very annoying questions about my future life goals. I am still regularly amazed at the nerve of people who insist that I will definitely change my mind one day as my life wouldn’t be complete without starting a family.
What a great idea if everyone adopts the same attitude as Sarah. The human population will have disappeared from the planet by the year 2100. At least we won’t have to worry about climate change. Our failure to reproduce as a species will have far more wide reaching and immediate effects than sea levels rising by 3 or 4 metres.
Don’t you get it – its not about happiness – its about survival! Reproduction is programmed into our species just as it’s programmed into every other species inhabiting the planet. Its not a “Life Choice” argument. It’s simple – we either reproduce or we disappear as a species. Maybe certain selfish people who value their materialistic lives, put themselves before the continuation of the species, but luckily, most of us don’t and respond naturally to our natural biological urges. In a nutshell – it’s natural to reproduce – its unnatural not to.
Also, I dispute the theory “People with no children are happier.”
How is this measured? Is there a happiness ometer?
Of all the people I know, if I were to generalise, I would say that the people I know who have children generally seem to be happier than those of my friends and acquantances who do not have children.
My parents are definitely happier. They have friends who have no children and who lead fairly lonely lives. My parents are not lonely and now live their lives vicariously , through their offspring and their offspring’s offspring.
“What a great idea if everyone adopts the same attitude as Sarah. The human population will have disappeared from the planet by the year 2100.”
And if everyone adopts the idea of having more children than are needed to replace themselves when they die, we will be swimming in seas of faeces and living in flats of about a meter square, paying 1000000 pounds for a loaf of bread as there is so little land for agriculture left and billions upon billions of mouths to feed! What a great world that will be.
Steve- I didn’t say that anyone should do anything. I’m not in the business of telling people what to do (oh wait, I sort of am- but as long as you know your times tables and can use a full stop properly that’s about the end of my input). In fact my post was about people who feel that they have the right to put pressure on people to act a certain way.
Happiness is notoriously difficult to measure, but it is possible to compare certain indicators within scientific study. All of this will be set out very clearly in the methods section of each study. “Of all the people I know, if I were to generalise, “… this is a very unreliable way of coming to knowledge, which is why evidence from scientific study is preferable when available.
Finally, yes we need to reproduce to survive. However, we are such a successful species that we are now at risk of putting so much strain on our resources that we will not be able to survive at our current population. It’s natural though. Just look at what happens to dear when they over produce. Starvation, disease, death, until the population can survive again on the resources available. Luckily we are more intelligent than dear and can predict future problems and modify our behaviour.
Sarah, sorry if I came across as rather too aggressive. It was not my intention.
However I never suggested that anyone should have more than two children – I certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of perpetuating population growth. The fact is that in the western world, populations are actually shrinking due to certain members of the population making so-called “lifestyle” choices. Birth rates in Scotland have fallen to 1.6 children per couple. If this trend is repeated across USA and western Europe we may well see the demise of western society. I can’t imagine that to be a “good” thing.
I would dearly like to know how these “happiness” surveys are carried out. If the interviewer contacted a person with no children and asked him/her if he/she was happier having no children or would perhaps feel happier if they had children, then the interviewee will have had very little to base his/her judgment on. They will have only lived with the status of “having no children” so therefore are ill prepared to be able to make a valued judgment call. Alternatively, people with children will have lived through both statuses, ie having had no children and subsequently having had children – therefore presumably would be in a position to be able to give a more balanced response. Perhaps such surveys should be limited to people who have had children.
Sarah – how can you say that you are happier having had no children, if you haven’t had any? You are in no position to make such a statement.
Steve,
Your a male so you need to shut your mouth; first of all. Second of all, you need to do research on the current population of THE WORLD. You seem ignorant. We are living in the year 2011 and we are not living in the bible fucking years anymore. Open your eyes, read the news! This world is overpopulated, if HUMANS keep reproducing at the current rate that they are (which includes women who choose not to procreate or are infertile- yes we do make our own choices now) we will not be able to sustain human existence by 2050. I trust that this will happen because there are many dumb people out there, such as yourself. Our resources will be lacking and the animals will mostly die out because we, as humans, like to take over everything….not unlike termites. I’m sure the key to happiness lies in making our offspring endure these hardships in the future…not. You know what happiness is to me? Waking up in the morning, feeding my innocent dog, going to work, doing some stress free shopping and watching R movies whenever I fucking please! You need to be part of the solution, not the problem.
-S
Sammi, you seem extremely rude to me.
“Your a male so you need to shut your mouth; first of all.”
So, what does this mean? (I’ll ignore your spelling and punctuation errors). Does this mean that because i’m a male I’m not entitled to an opinion?
I’m not at all sure what point you’re trying to make. Are you saying that people should choose not to procreate and not to reproduce? Not very likely to happen. Are you saying that people should have a right to choose whether they have children or not? If you are, fair enough, but this attitude would need to start with Africa, China and India, rather than with the educated in western society. The overpopulation problem calls for additional education of the third world, rather than a desire for the first world to stop reproducing.