{"id":5003,"date":"2023-09-29T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=5003"},"modified":"2023-09-29T13:00:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T13:00:40","slug":"new-study-reveals-marriage-is-the-single-biggest-indicator-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2023\/09\/new-study-reveals-marriage-is-the-single-biggest-indicator-of-happiness.html","title":{"rendered":"New Study Reveals Marriage is the Single Biggest Indicator of Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A study from the University of Chicago has declared marriage as \u201cthe most important differentiator\u201d for determining who is happy in America. The study, called the <\/span>General Social Survey (GSS)<\/span><\/a>, surveyed thousands of respondents, asking, \u201cAre] you \u2026very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?\u201d The GSS found that married respondents had a thirty-point gap in their happiness compared to unmarried Americans, for both men and women. Researcher Sam Peltzman stated that marriage remains a solid indicator of happiness. While other factors such as income, race, and education do impact happiness, marriage remains the most consistent, asserted Peltzman. \u201cMarital status is and has been a very important marker for happiness. The happiness landslide comes entirely from the marriage. Low happiness characterizes all types of non-married. No subsequent population categorization will yield so large a difference in happiness across so many people,\u201d said Peltzman. While marriage remains the highest indicator of happiness overall, Americans\u2019 happiness had declined since 1972, when the GSS began. Peltzman attributed this to the \u201crecent decline in the married share of adults can explain (statistically) most of the recent decline in overall happiness.\u201d The drop in happiness is especially pronounced in middle and lower-income individuals, who are getting married at decreasingly lower rates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The debate on marriage and happiness has been heightened by the declining value placed on marriage and the celebration of singleness and self-focused living that has become popular on social media platforms like TikTok. <\/span>Julia Mazur<\/span><\/a>\u00a0recently went viral when conservative pundit Matt Walsh criticized her TikTok video celebrating a lazy Saturday as a 29-year-old woman without a husband or children. \u201cHer life doesn\u2019t revolve around her family and kids, so instead, it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all, she\u2019s too stupid to realize how depressing this is,\u201d Walsh criticized. Despite most studies showing a link between marriage and happiness, whether marriage is a source of happiness or happy people are the ones who get married remains a topic of debate. In an article for\u00a0<\/span>The Atlantic<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0discussing the GSS data, writer Olga Khazan described herself in the camp of \u201ccynical libertines\u201d who believe happy people are the ones who get married. Khazan pointed to a German study that showed people who married and stayed married were happier than those who remained unmarried, to begin with. Also, the study found that any additional happiness after the marriage was short-lived.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Khazan went on to describe the camp of \u201cromantics\u201d \u201cwho believe that getting married makes you happy because there\u2019s something special about marriage.\u201d This camp believes that marriage increases happiness because it creates a supportive system that is more reliable than even the deepest friendships. While friendships can become very connected, things such as moving or changes in home situations can disrupt a friendship, whereas marriage partners tend to experience life together. Addressing the GSS data, the <\/span>Institute for Family Studies<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(IFS) concluded that the data does not support friendships and \u201cchosen family\u201d as a substitute for marriage partners. \u201cThe GSS provides no support for this idea,\u201d the IFS concluded. \u201cWhen people reported increased frequency of \u2018social evenings spent with friends,\u2019 even large increases, there was essentially no associated change in happiness. This doesn\u2019t mean that friendship is irrelevant for happiness, of course, especially since \u2018social evenings spent with friends\u2019 are a very crude measure of true friendship. But this does suggest that, at the high level, filling your life with game nights and, book clubs and outings with friends is unlikely to yield as much happiness as marriage. There simply is no substitute for marriage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A study from the University of Chicago has declared marriage as \u201cthe most important differentiator\u201d for determining who is happy in America. The study, called the General Social Survey (GSS), surveyed thousands of respondents, asking, \u201cAre] you \u2026very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?\u201d The GSS found that married respondents had a thirty-point gap…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":5009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Study Reveals Marriage is the Single Biggest Indicator of Happiness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new study has declared marriage as \u201cthe most important differentiator\u201d for determining who is happy in America.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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