Article summary with Married... with children: The science of well-being in marriage and family life by Nelson-Coffey

What is this article about?

Marriage and parenthood are thought of as opportunities for people to experience great joy, but also incredible disappointment. This article is a review of the current understanding of the relationship between the social structures marriage and parenthood to well-being. Well-being is understood here as including both cognitive and affective components, so high life satisfaction and frequent positive emotions and infrequent negative emotions.

Various methodological approaches have been implemented to better understand how family relationships are related to well-beings. The question of causality may not be directly answered, but there is interesting information we can draw from recent research. Current evidence provides strong support for the association between marriage and well-being, but the relationship between parenthood and well-being is complex.

Is marriage associated with happiness and why?

Cross-sectional studies have indicated that married people tend to be happier than unmarried people. But it is not yet perfectly understood which way this relationship goes. Perhaps happier people get married more, or the relationships of happier people are more stable. To examine this, there has also been research of people's happiness before and after they got married. This research suggests that getting married does have a causal effect on higher well-being. Getting married is associated with a boost in happiness, but that boost does diminish over time. The effect of marriage on well-being is also greater for some people than it is for others. The effect of marriage was also found to be stronger for women than for men. 

Why marriage is associated with happiness, is usually thought to be because of the importance of relationships. Married people are happier than people who were never married, divorced people and widowed people. But it is still unclear whether married people are happier than cohabitating people. More research is needed. Also, more research is needed on the effect of same-sex marriage, as most research now is on traditional male-female marriages. 

Is parenthood associated with happiness and why?

Parenthood is so complex and dynamic, that it should be seen as a fluid process that changes over time. The association between parenthood and well-being, depends on many different factors. Research has shown conflicting results. Longitudinal and daily experience studies do provide consistent support that parenthood could be associated with elevated levels of well-being, but these elevated levels seem to be temporarily. Evidence from cross-sectional studies is much less consistent. There are a lot of factors that could explain the individual differences in the effect of parenthood, such as age, gender, marital status, personality, and attachment. The effect of parenthood on well-being is bigger for fathers than for mothers. 

The positive effects of parenthood on happiness can be explained by elevated feelings of meaning in life, positive emotions, fulfillment of social roles and satisfaction of the psychological needs autonomy, competence, and connectedness. The negative effects can be explained by elevated negative emotions, financial strain, sleep disturbance, and lower relationship satisfaction. These theories have not yet been studied enough to make these conclusions though.

We need more research to the moderating factors of the effect of parenthood on well-being. We also need more research on different family structures, such as adoptive and blended families and same-sex partnerships.