The impact of children and marital status on happiness

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Sociology - Gender Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Cincinnati (College of Business), course: Binary Choice Models, language: English, abstract: - Determining factors influencing happiness and well-being becomes increasingly important as politics solely based on the maximization of income/GDP miss the goal of
increasing well-being.
- This study utilizes data from the 2008 wave of the General Social Survey - a survey comprised of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions - to determine factors
that influence the probability of being happy.
- As expected, positive general factors are marriage, a high education and the per capita family income. However, only marriage has a high statistical significance.
- Negative determinants are unemployment, the number of hours worked per week, a
decrease in the family income and a perceived low relative income (compared to others).
- Being a parent, i.e. having at least one child has a negative effect. However, happiness is increasing with a rising number of children. It is important to note that the effects of
having children are very different among different groups of people: Children have a strong positive effect on married individuals and a low effect on divorced/separated and widowed ones. Being at least 21 years old when the first child is born increases the likelihood that children have a positive impact on happiness. Surprisingly, the effect of
children is positive if the children do not live with their parents or if the parents work a lot.
- Social comparison and adaption effects seem to play an important role.