Family Life and Happiness

We are social animals: Having a partner makes people happier; being without one reduces happiness. In cross-section data, those with a partner are invariably happier; in time-series statistics, happiness enjoys a lasting increase for those with lifelong partners. Children are a more complicated story. Early on, they increase happiness, but it doesn’t last—financial pressures bring happiness back down relatively quickly. As in the case of health, the benchmarks for evaluating family life are usually grounded in one’s own past experience and are fairly fixed. Consequently, enrichment of family life increases happiness, and deterioration of family life reduces it.