Kids Make Their Parents Happy as Adults

Studies have demonstrated that young parents are less happy than other parents of comparable age if they have many children. A new investigation shows that the correlation only holds until the parents reach mid-life, and beyond.

At that time, they become truly happy about having a large family around them. Late-night feedings and diaper changes can be challenging to anyone, experts say, and especially to young parents who have many kids.

But the couple almost always becomes happier with time, once their children grow up. New data show that the more kids a pair of parents have, the happier they are once they turn 40 or more.

“Children may be a long-term investment in happiness,” explains the lead author of the new study, expert Mikko Myrskyla. Details of the work appear in the March issue of the medical journal population and Development Review.

Myrskyla and his team are based at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany. The data used in the work were collected between 1981 and 2005, and cover 200,000 men and women in about 86 countries.

Statistical analysis of the information showed that parents aged 30 or less became considerably less happy with the birth of each child. For parents aged 30 to 39, the level of happiness was steady if they had 4 kids or less, LiveScience reports.

But, beyond the age of 40, the level of happiness in couples with 1 to 3 children becomes greater than that of childless couples. Beyond 50, parents are happier than non-parents regardless of how many children they have.

According to the German experts, these correlations hold regardless of the gender, level of income, or the partnership status of the relationships between parents. The team also accounted for other reasons that might have made the parents happy, other than their kids.

This research paper finally explains the difference between what people believe (that children cause happiness) and what surveys find on a constant basis (that the more kids parents have, the less happy they are as a couple).

“Seeing the age trend of happiness independent of sex, income, partnership status and even fertility rates shows that one has to explain it from the perspective of the stage of parents' life,” Myrskla explains.