Marriage brings as much happiness as an addition", $150,000 in income, according to a new study.
David Blanchflower, a Dartmouth College economist, and Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick, studied 100,000 people over a 25-year period. They found the happiness level among U.S. subjects has declined, while the happiness level for Britons has remained relatively flat.
"Women are happier than men but that gap is closing. You see women have equality now and they’re less happy than they were,” Blanchflower said, attributing the drop to greater pressures.
Money does buy happiness but less than is generally thought, Blanchflower noted. “You have to have a lot of money to compensate you for a family breakdown.”
When the amount of happiness generated by a lasting marriage was compared to the happiness produced by financial circumstances, the statistics showed a lasting marriage brought as much happiness as an additional $150,000 in annual income.
Reuters.
[Source: Economics Canada section. National Post. November 17, 1999.]