It is a commonly held belief that babies bring people together, but is that necessarily true. The null hypothesis of this study is that there is no relationship between having children and well-being. On one hand, people view children as a way to bring people together over the celebration of new life. But on the other half, some people view that the stress of being in charge of a child can put too much strain on a relationship for it to last.
In a European study from 2011, researchers did a two-fold research study that looked into both the relationship of happiness and childbearing in different countries as well as childbearing and relationship status. The two went together because you could look at the difference in relationship status as a confounding variable if it was found that it makes a significant difference in someones happiness. Using the European Social Survey, the researchers were able to get accurate statistics of the relationship, although it was limited in some capacity becasue it was originally for comparisons of different countries and not relationship status.
In another study done by a team at TIMES magazine, they found that the major factor in differing levels of happiness was the age of the parents. Sighting that the parents between the ages of 17-25 were less happy than their counterparts. But they also found that parents found their lives more rewarding, so it shows that there are obvious positives and negatives when it comes to having a child.
There are also many reasons why the two studies could have found differing results. One is reverse causation, which in this scenario, would be that the child bearing is caused by a persons happiness. This would be plausible becasue you have someone who is happy where their life is and the might decide it is a good time to have a child. There’s also the possibility that there is a third confounding variable that could be playing a role in the relationship between childbearing and happiness. The third variable could be anything from places surveyed to the social-economic well being and other things.
Sources
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11205-011-9866-x
Do Children Bring Happiness—or Misery?
http://www.communitybiblestudy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/baby-mom-grandma.jpg
http://boca4kids.com/10-reasons-to-read-to-your-child/
I think that you can never really say is a child can save a marriage. I think that a lot of times when two people who don’t have a good marriage have a child they simply stay together for the child, that does not mean they have a good marriage. I think that the two studies you talked about have differing results because there could be third variable effecting having kids and happiness. I think that it is hard to do research on a question like this, but the research is definitely interesting.
I’ve seen so many examples of this in the media and real life. Teenage girls want to get pregnant so her boyfriend will stay with her. Honestly, in my opinion, I’m in between the two extremes. Parts of me doesn’t believe anything can save a failing marriage due to the lack of love between the two individuals. But then again it might affect the couple in a positive way seeing as though their love created something so pure and they learn to love their child because it’s also part of their partner. It’s interesting to see studies that try and link happiness with a child and a failing marriage.