Category: Happiness

Are people who choose not to have children any less happy, or perhaps happier, than those who do have children?

Couples who choose not to have children are just as happy as those with children, a survey suggests.

Happiness in this study was measured in terms of life satisfaction.

Life satisfaction is an overall judgement about one’s life as opposed to moment-by-moment happiness.

In this sense, child-free couples are judging their lives as just as satisfying as those with children.

The term ‘child-free’ is intended to convey the idea of choice about child-bearing, explained Dr Jennifer Watling Neal, the study’s first author:

“Most studies haven’t asked the questions necessary to distinguish ‘child-free’ individuals — those who choose not to have children — from other types of nonparents.

Nonparents can also include the ‘not-yet-parents’ who are planning to have kids, and ‘childless’ people who couldn’t have kids due to infertility or circumstance.

Previous studies simply lumped all nonparents into a single category to compare them to parents.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 1,000 adults in Michigan.

Dr Zachary Neal, study co-author, explained the results:

“After controlling for demographic characteristics, we found no differences in life satisfaction and limited differences in personality traits between child-free individuals and parents, not-yet-parents, or childless individuals.

We also found that child-free individuals were more liberal than parents, and that people who aren’t child-free felt substantially less warm toward child-free individuals.”

The researchers were surprised by the number of child-free couples in Michigan, Dr Jennifer Watling Neal said:

“We found that more than one in four people in Michigan identified as child-free, which is much higher than the estimated prevalence rate in previous studies that relied on fertility to identify child-free individuals.

These previous studies placed the rate at only 2% to 9%.

We think our improved measurement may have been able to better capture individuals who identify as child-free.”

Child-free couples are happier

Other studies have suggested that child-free couples are happier, especially in the United States.

The happiness gap between parents and non-parents is greatest in the US across 22 industrialised countries.

This could be down to policies that are relatively unsupportive for families.

Many parents will naturally disagree with the finding that non-parents are happier.

One reason parents feel that children make them happier is the happiness boost from having a first and second child (but not a third — by then it is commonplace).

One study has found that it provides a happiness boost equivalent to getting married or getting a new job.

It is this increase in happiness early on that gives the impression that having children is linked to more happiness.

The boost is relatively short-lived, probably lasting only through the first year of the child’s life.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Neal & Neal, 2021).

Urban parks improved emotional well-being, even without doing any exercise.

Just 20 minutes in an urban park makes people feel happier, research finds.

There is no need to do any exercise (although it may help), just being there is enough.

The park provides time for the mind to recover from stress and fatigue.

Professor Hon K. Yuen, the study’s first author, said:

“Overall, we found park visitors reported an improvement in emotional well-being after the park visit.

However, we did not find levels of physical activity are related to improved emotional well-being.

Instead, we found time spent in the park is related to improved emotional well-being.”

The study included 94 people who were visiting one of three urban parks in the US: Overton, Jemison and Cahaba River Walk Parks in Mountain Brook, Alabama.

Each was asked about their emotional health.

The results showed that being in the park improved emotional well-being, even without doing any exercise.

Dr Gavin R. Jenkins, study co-author, said:

“There is increasing pressure on green space within urban settings.

Planners and developers look to replace green space with residential and commercial property.

The challenge facing cities is that there is an increasing evidence about the value of city parks but we continue to see the demise of theses spaces.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research (Yuen et al., 2019).

Money increase the sense of control over life.

More money does indeed make people more happy, the latest U.S. research finds.

Well-being related to income does not level-off at around $75,000 a year as previous studies have found.

Instead, it keeps increasing in proportion to income.

This includes the two main forms of happiness: being satisfied with life overall and moment-by-moment happiness.

This means that someone who earns $50,000 a year is measurably happier than someone who earns $25,000 a year.

It also means someone earning $200,000 is happier than someone earning $100,000.

The research might come as a surprise to some psychologists who have maintained that money only makes people happier up to a point — usually around $75,000 a year.

Dr Matthew Killingsworth, the study’s author, said:

“It’s a compelling possibility, the idea that money stops mattering above that point, at least for how people actually feel moment to moment.

But when I looked across a wide range of income levels, I found that all forms of well-being continued to rise with income.

I don’t see any sort of kink in the curve, an inflection point where money stops mattering.

Instead, it keeps increasing.”

The study included 33,000 people and 1.7 million data points.

Participants were asked about their moment-by-moment feelings and their general satisfaction with life.

Dr Killingsworth said:

“This process provided repeated snapshots of people’s lives, which collectively gives us a composite image, a stop-motion movie of their lives.

Scientists often talk about trying to get a representative sample of the population.

I was trying to get a representative sample of the moments of people’s lives.”

The reason that richer people are happier is partly down to a greater sense of control over life.

Dr Killingsworth said:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life.

You can likely see this in the pandemic.

People living paycheck to paycheck who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike.

People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit.

Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

It is better to avoid thinking of success in monetary terms, though, said Dr Killingsworth:

“Although money might be good for happiness, I found that people who equated money and success were less happy than those who didn’t.

I also found that people who earned more money worked longer hours and felt more pressed for time.”

Overall, money only plays a modest part in the equation of happiness:

“If anything, people probably overemphasize money when they think about how well their life is going.

Yes, this is a factor that might matter in a way that we didn’t fully realize before, but it’s just one of many that people can control and ultimately, it’s not one I’m terribly concerned people are undervaluing.”

Whether or not these findings apply to people outside the United States is not clear.

Certainly, though, Americans have seen changes in the connection between money and happiness.

For example, recent research from the U.S. concludes that in the last fifty years, money has become more strongly linked to happiness.

The benefits of more money to people’s happiness, instead of tailing off, may have increased over the last fifty years.

In effect, the rich are not just getting richer, they are getting happier.

At the same time, the poor are getting more unhappy.

This has created a happiness gap between rich and poor.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Killingsworth, 2021).

Many people have taken up novelty activities during the pandemic.

Doing meaningful activities is the key to boosting happiness while social distancing and lockdown rules are in effect, a new study finds.

In contrast, keeping busy just for the sake of it does not boost happiness.

Indeed, mindless busywork tends to leave people feeling unsatisfied and unsettled.

It is better to continue with activities that were enjoyable before the pandemic — only in a a different form.

For example, dinner parties can be done virtually as can group exercise classes.

Dr Lauren Saling, study co-author, said:

“Busyness might be distracting but it won’t necessarily be fulfilling.

Rather, think about what activities you miss most and try and find a way of doing them.”

Researchers asked almost 100 people about their level of well-being before and during lockdown.

The results revealed that when people took up novelty lockdown activities, like baking and painting, just to keep busy, this was linked to more extreme emotions.

On the other hand, meaningful activities made people feel calmer.

Dr Saling said:

“Extreme emotions are not necessarily a good thing.

Emotions are a mechanism to make you change your behaviour.

But when you’re doing what you love, it makes sense that you feel more balanced — simply keeping busy isn’t satisfying.”

Simply being busy is not enough to stave off sadness.

Dr Saling said:

“The study showed positive and negative affect worked together, not as opposites.

Respondents who simply stayed busy during lockdown reported an increase in both positive and negative emotions.

This heightened emotionality will tend to shift you away from activity in general and towards meaningful activity.”

The study also revealed that people under 40 experienced the largest changes to their positive emotions after lockdown.

This might be because younger people have more difficulty finding suitable substitute activities.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Cohen et al., 2020).