Lyman Stone, my favorite demographer - okay, the only demographer I know by name - has a go at the data to see what it shows. There are some strong showings, some modest ones, and a good deal of messiness from which solid conclusions should not be drawn. Does Getting Married Really Make You Happier? Right off, he looks at the possibility that happier people get married, for which there is some evidence. However, he eventually finds that unpersuasive.
In general, marriage seems to raise subjective happiness scores, definitely in the short run and less so in the long run, but noticeably.
Stone is a research fellow at the Institute of Family Studies. Lots of good articles at the link, including fertility crisis, a long series on boys at school, and the effect of AI girlfriends.
3 comments:
Dropping a marker before I go read the links: In the 90's when I got deeply into the social-science literature, being married was worth an extra decade of lifespan for men, and had no effect on lifespan of women.
The conclusion that I came to then was that the key to happiness was long-lasting close friendships, something women seem to be inherently better at than men.
One of the other articles dealt with the impact of the number of pre-marriage sexual partners on stability, trying to figure out the "how"--like a scientist. Does having more partners make future bonding harder, or do those with trouble bonding have more partners?
The alternative "engineer" viewpoint would be "Never mind which is the cause and which the effect; all other things being equal, a prospective partner with a 'history' is a poor bet for a spouse."
It would be interesting to know what factors are different in those with "a history" who nevertheless manage happy marriages. Some kind of conversion, working past bad examples, or overcoming some psychological problem, maybe? Or maybe nothing at all changed?
I think people who get married are more likely to be normal--as in, in the normal range on a bell curve distribution. So, it's correlation, not causation.
If you are "normal," you are more likely to find things you like in all aspects of life. Think of it as being right-handed in a right-handed world, rather than left-handed. Your tastes are the norm. You have better chances of finding someone normal who shares your tastes, and thus a greater chance of forming a long-term partnership. Looking at wedding announcements in the paper, I would not say that the brides and grooms are better looking than the norm, despite tik-tok influencers' opinions.
You're more likely to be happy than people who are on the tails of the normal curve, because the world is made by and for people like you.
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