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Marriage and Children as a Key to Happiness? Cross-National Differences in the Effects of Marital Status and Children on Well-Being

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Abstract

This research examines the relationship between family structure and subjective well-being and the extent to which cultural differences across 24 countries/regions may condition that relationship. Using the 2002 ISSP data, we examine how the effects of marriage status and the presence of children on happiness and satisfaction with family life differ according to the perceived importance of marriage and parenthood in society. We find significant cross-country differences in the relationship between presence of young children and the happiness of men, and in the relationship between the marital status of women and their happiness and satisfaction with family life.

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Notes

  1. http://www.gesis.org/en/services/data/survey-data/issp/modules-study-overview/environment/2000/.

  2. In the remainder of the text we refer to the macro-level unit of analysis as countries with the recognition that several are in fact regions (albeit ones with distinctive characteristics). Because the data for Bulgaria, Ireland and New Zealand do not contain detailed information on the family composition, these countries are not included in the analysis. In the tables and figures countries are referenced with the abbreviations as shown in Appendix 1.

  3. The category ‘Can’t choose’ was explicitly provided in the questionnaire for this item as well as for that on satisfaction with family life.

  4. The ISSP data allows only the distinction between children younger than the age of 6 in the household and children between the ages of 6 and 17. Depending on the country, the age boundary is set at either 5 or 6 years old (Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung 2004).

  5. Analyses were conducted on the weighted dataset. For more information on the construction of the national weighting coefficients, consult the code book of the ISSP 2002 (Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung 2004).

  6. The explained variance within and between the countries is calculated by looking at the degree in which the variance components σu and σe have diminished in comparison with the unconditional means model (Bryk and Raudenbush 1992).

  7. For the results discussed above, the presented R² values are not the same as the traditional R² statistics in that they only refer to the proportion of ‘explained variance’. This means that we can obtain comparatively high values for this statistic without explaining a great deal of the overall variance (because there is not much to explain) (Singer 1998). Our variance at the country level is in any case relatively low (partially due to the small number of countries) and the proportion of contextual variables to the number of countries is relatively high, thus hindering the production of robust estimates.

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Correspondence to Sofie Vanassche.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 4.

Table 4 22–55 years old mean and women in the national samples

Appendix 2

See Table 5.

Table 5 Absolute and relative frequencies for individual variables

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Vanassche, S., Swicegood, G. & Matthijs, K. Marriage and Children as a Key to Happiness? Cross-National Differences in the Effects of Marital Status and Children on Well-Being. J Happiness Stud 14, 501–524 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9340-8

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