The parental happiness gap is largest in the US:
Do children make you happier? It depends in which industrialised country you live.
Non-parents are happier than parents, especially in the United States, new research finds.The happiness gap between parents and non-parents is greatest in the US across 22 industrialised countries.
The reason could be down to policies that are relatively unsupportive for families, argues the report prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families.
Dr Matthew Andersson, one of the study’s co-authors, said:
“The United States, without any standard paid leave available to mothers or parents — or any standard vacation or sick leave to support raising a dependent child — falls strikingly behind all the other countries we examined in terms of providing for parents’ happiness and overall well-being.”In countries where government policies provide more support for families, parents may even be slightly happier than non-parents.
Researchers compared data from European countries, Russia, the US, New Zealand and Australia.
Money did not work as well as giving parents flexibility, the study’s authors write:
“Another striking finding was that giving money to parents in child allowances or monthly payments had less effect on parental happiness than giving them the tools — such as flexible work time — to combine employment with parenting.”
No comments:
Post a Comment