The Happiest People In The World: Parents

The pursuit of happiness has long been an American obsession. Researchers at three universities now believe they have found a key to this goal: parenting. According to their study, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning from life than non-parents.

Despite the fact that parenthood brings on a high level of responsibility, the positive emotional rewards of parenting outweigh the negatives, according to the latest studies of emotional fulfillment.

“This series of studies suggest that parents are not nearly the ‘miserable creatures’ we might expect from recent studies and popular representations,” says University of British Columbia researcher Elizabeth Dunn, who co-authored the studies with colleagues at the University of California, University of California Riverside and Stanford University. “If you went to a large dinner party, our findings suggest that the parents in the room would be as happy or happier than those guests without children.”

Over three studies, the researchers tested whether parents are happier overall than their childless peers, if parents feel better moment-to-moment than non-parents, and whether parents experience more positive feelings when taking care of children than during their other daily activities. The consistency of their findings, based on data and participants in both the U.S. and Canada, provides strong evidence challenging the notion that children are associated with reduced well-being, the researchers say.

“We find that if you are older (and presumably more mature) and if you are married (and presumably have more social and financial support), then you’re likely to be happier if you have children than your childless peers,” says co-author Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at Riverside. “This is not true, however, for single parents or very young parents.”