It wasn’t long ago that one economist set out to prove the world that having children wasn’t the way to happiness for married couples, but rather their way of deceiving themselves about what life had in store for them. Despite this, a new study comes to show that children do actually bring happiness and satisfaction in married life, with researchers establishing a clear connection between the number of children and the level of satisfaction of the two partners, as Alpha Galileo informs.

Married with children seems to be the key to happiness, researchers at the University of Glasgow in the UK, led by Dr. Luis Angeles, have learned. The findings of the study have also been published online in Springer’s Journal of Happiness Studies, and they indicate that the more children the better. What this means to say is that researchers have found a direct link between the number of children a married couple has and the levels of satisfaction of the parents.

Oppositely, unmarried couples or single parents are in no way affected by the birth of a child in terms of happiness and satisfaction levels registered, the study has also found. “Having children improves married peoples’ life satisfaction and the more they have, the happier they are. For unmarried individuals, raising children has little or no positive effect on their happiness. Previous research suggests that increasing numbers of children do not make people any happier, and in some cases the more children people have, the less satisfied they are with their lives. Rather bleakly, this has been attributed to the fact that raising children involves a lot of hard work for only a few occasional rewards.” the aforementioned publication writes.

However, the recent study comes to upturn the previously held belief by showing that life satisfaction receives a boost with the birth of a child. The more children a couple has, the higher they place in terms of life satisfaction, which, in turn, demonstrates that the benefits of having kids considerably outweigh the downsides. Speaking of which, researchers have also established that the latter includes a fall in the level of satisfaction with social life and leisure time.

“One is tempted to advance that children make people better off under the ‘right conditions’ – a time in life when people feel that they are ready, or at least willing, to enter parenthood. This time can come at very different moments for different individuals, but a likely signal of its approach may well be the act of marriage.” Dr. Angeles concludes by saying of the findings.