Global Study: Kids do not be happier - STERN.DE

Two parents with a child in Shanghai: in the USA. most parents are just a little less satisfied with their overall well-being, sees the world quite differently from © EPA / QILAI SHEN / dpa

E ltering are no happier than those without children. This is according to a large study at least for the United States and other industrialized countries. In poorer countries, children even had a negative on the wellbeing of how researchers determined from Princeton University.

In the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” published scientists now have a two-part study, for which they almost three million people surveyed worldwide. In the first part, 1.8 million U.S. citizens between 2008 and 2012, interviewed in the second part 2006-2012 1.07 million people from 161 countries.

No great difference in the U.S.

Participants should estimate how close they get an “ideal” state of life and what emotions they felt the day before. As responses were happy, sad, angry, worried and stressed to choose from.

In the U.S., both groups arranged on a scale of one to ten, with about seven points a: parents with children of all ages at 6.82 and childless at 6.84. Only in the age range of 34 – to 46-year-olds, parents happier (6.84) estimated in comparison to those without children (6.51)

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impact on well-being

parents are a little stressed. They also report more emotional highs and lows than people without children. But parents are also more likely for married, wealthier, better educated, devout and healthier. “It all has well-documented effects on well-being,” the researchers write. “For the 1.8 million Americans of all ages (…) we make a small difference in subjective well-being between people with and without children firmly,” the researchers said.

This is not according to the study for poorer countries. There, parents showed overall less satisfied with their lives. In the study, says, “The higher the fertility rate, the more frequently assessed people with children their lives worse than those without.”