Having children DOESN’T make you happy, study claims

They’re commonly billed as a ‘bundle of joy’ – but having children doesn’t make you happier, according to a new study.

Researchers have discovered that becoming a parent provides no significant increase in positive emotions.

They found hardly any difference in reported happiness levels or life satisfaction between parents and non–parents.

The study, published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, contradicts the widespread belief that children are sources of positive emotions.

And it reveals that becoming parents actually triggers a decline in relationship satisfaction.

‘These results do not support our hypothesis that parenthood is positively associated with hedonic wellbeing (levels of positive emotions) and life satisfaction,’ the researchers, from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, wrote.

‘Instead, our findings suggest neutrality – namely, that parenthood has limited impact on these dimensions.

‘In almost all cases, the observable differences between parents and non–parents were tiny.’

For the study, the team analysed data on more than 5,000 people across 10 countries, including the UK.

Of the sample, 38.5 per cent reported having children.

Participants were asked to complete questionnaires which assessed two different types of wellbeing – hedonic, which refers to day–to–day feelings such as happiness, sadness and loneliness, and eudaimonic, which refers to having a purpose in life.

Analysis revealed parents were no happier than non–parents, and overall levels of life satisfaction were much the same.

The team said a positive link between parenthood and happiness – as documented in previous studies – may actually be down to relationship status.

People who are in relationships tend to be better off emotionally compared to those who are single, and they are also more likely to have children.

In the new study, the researchers also found that women with children reported a slightly greater sense of having a ‘purpose’ to life, but the difference was small.

‘Additionally, participants with children reported lower relationship satisfaction than those without children,’ they said.

‘In general, combining our findings with prior research suggests that parenthood is either neutral or has a very small impact on hedonic wellbeing and life satisfaction,’ the team concluded.

They suggest that rather than long–term boosts to happiness and wellbeing, children instead provide intense but brief positive emotional experiences.

For example, feelings of joy and pride when a child graduates from university.

While these moments are important, they might be too brief to provide a sustained uplift to happiness levels, the researchers said.

When it comes to relationship satisfaction, they suggest that parenthood exerts two opposing influences on a couple.

‘One positive, resulting from mutual genetic interests fostering cooperation and unity, and one negative, arising from associated financial costs, significant time demands, and stressors involved in child–rearing, all of which place strain on relationships,’ they wrote.

They argued that their findings can be helpful for those who want children – especially if they anticipate sustained increases in happiness and positive emotions from becoming parents.

‘These expectations will likely not materialise,’ they added. ‘Our results combined with the results of previous literature suggest that parenting has many rewards, but a permanent increase in baseline hedonic wellbeing is unlikely to be one of them.’

A previous study, which involved nearly 60,000 people in Europe, found around 90 per cent agreed that ‘watching children grow up is life’s greatest joy’.

Meanwhile, a separate paper revealed that 97 per cent of parents strongly endorse the view that children are sources of positive emotional experiences.

However, research published in 2016 found that overall, the positive glow of parenting only lasts around 12 months.

After that time, there is no improvement in ‘subjective wellbeing’.