The team looked at 55,000 people over the age of 50 living in 16 European countries and asked them to rate
their life satisfaction from 0 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied).
Scientists found that parents with adult sons and daughters scored between 0.02 and 0.56 points higher on
the scale.
Lead researcher Dr Christopher Becker told The Independent: “That is, of course not an extremely big
difference, but it comes from a data set with thousands of respondents. Hence, while children might not be
the biggest driver of life satisfaction and happiness it has on average still a significant influence.”
They found that adults who have regular contact with their children are happier than parents who still live
with their children or never had them.
Dr Becker said: “We build on a lot of pre-existing literature and rather than finding some completely unique
new result for children, we lend further evidence to the literature suggesting that children correlate with
higher happiness under specific circumstances.”
Researchers also found that marriage was “consistently positively correlated with wellbeing and lack of
depressive symptoms”.
The findings show social networks are also an important determinant for wellbeing and happiness – it is not
just about being married or having children but having people to share feelings and thoughts with too.
“Taken together, our results suggest that social networks may be important for wellbeing and mental health
in old age. Spouses, partners and children are often the basis of long-lasting social networks, which can
provide social support to elderly people,” according to the study, published in Plos One.
“While results on parenthood might be controversial and depend on the age of the studied population, there
is widespread agreement that social support is associated with higher life satisfaction, and that social
networks are an important factor for wellbeing.”