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Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durab
by 0xB31B1B 3y ago
Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durable finding across many studies.
- jitl 3y agoIs it the marriage contract that brings the happiness? Or is it a lifelong relationship with someone they love? Do such studies have a reporting group for “we’ve been together 40 years but didn’t get married”?
- Kye 3y agoI would definitely like to see those studies broken down by how happy the marriages are. Somehow I doubt it's accurate for married couples who are constantly at each others' throats.
- rullelito 3y agoDoesn't mean marriage affects your happiness.
- andrei_says_ 3y agoMarried people vs singles or vs long terms partners living together?
- paulryanrogers 3y agoCompared to people in cohabitating couples? Are singles included? It could also be that people who are generally happier tend to be those to get/stay married. I also wonder if there is some sunk cost psychology involved when surveying those later in life.
- noirbot 3y agoYea, I'd assume the chronically unhappy/depressed are probably less likely to find a long-term partner than average. It would potentially be also interesting to control for sexual activity? Presumably most married couples were sexually active together at some point, which I'd assume generally increases happiness.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thx-2718 3y agoWouldn't that be selection bias? Presumably Married people at that stage are there because they work together not because there's just someone else there.
- sammywater 3y ago[dead]
- heavyset_go 3y agoI think a significant chunk of people will say and believe that they're happy because they checked some of the life-milestone boxes that are supposed to make them happy. How many people are going to choose to have a mid/late-life crisis because a survey made them wonder if they were truly happy with their huge, life-changing and nearly irreversible decision to be married?
- cthulberg 3y agoSurvivorship bias?
- ameminator 3y agoSomewhat, there are studies that control for "never married" vs "divorced", and other studies that lump them together. In the cases of "never married", their happiness level approached that of married people in the last 10-15 years. Whereas divorced people were absolutely miserable, especially in the first few years following the separation. This suggests that it's the divorcees who bring down the average happiness level of the "single" group, not that "marriage" brings up the happiness levels.
- pcthrowaway 3y agoWet roads have also been found to have a much higher chance of being somewhere rain has recently occurred than dry roads. But the wet roads didn't cause the rain.
- tetris11 3y agoI wonder how much of that is tied to wealth. A wedding is (ridiculously) expensive.
- lisasays 3y agoRight, but those benefits come from being in stable, committed partnership with an awesome person. What the poster above is saying is that one can also have essentially all the benefits of a strong partnership (the ones that really matter, anyway), sans marriage. As for benefits that don't matter so much I count things like societal approval, "doing what my parents always wanted", etc. Which matter for some, but certainly not for all.