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A study in China found that parents tend to be happier than non-parents. Among parents, those with more children tend to be happier, but only among those aged 60 and above. Parents who only had daughters tended to be happier than those having only boys, particularly those who had exactly two daughters. The paper was published in Acta Psychologica.
Happiness is an important component of quality of life. It can depend on both personal circumstances and broader social conditions. Family structure can play an important role in how happy a person is, particularly through the number of children, their ages, and the kinds of support they provide. Parenthood can make a person happier by creating emotional meaning and companionship, but it can also increase financial demands, daily responsibilities, and work-family conflict. These costs and benefits may change across the life course as children grow older and parents’ needs shift.
Adult children can contribute to parents’ well-being through financial assistance, practical help, emotional support, and maintaining close family relationships. Sons and daughters can provide different forms of support because cultural expectations and gender roles shape how family responsibilities are distributed.
Daughters tend to be more involved in maintaining family contact and providing emotional support, whereas sons may be expected in some cultures to provide greater financial or practical assistance. The relationship between children and parental happiness can therefore depend strongly on cultural norms, economic resources, social security systems, and whether families live in urban or rural settings.
Study authors Zhong Fei and Wenqin Jin wanted to explore how a person’s happiness is associated with the number of children the person has and their gender. More specifically, they wanted to answer the following question: “what kind of offspring composition, in which ways, and for which parents, can improve their quality of life in Chinese society?”
These researchers analyzed data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). The CGSS is a large, multistage survey initiated by Renmin University of China in 2003. It covers all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China and targets the civilian population aged 18 years and above. Study participants were recruited from 100 counties and five metropolitan areas (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) across China. There were six data collection waves in the study between 2012 and 2021, each involving between 8,000 and 13,000 participants. The dataset used in this analysis included data from 49,752 individuals, 45,108 of whom had children.
From this dataset, the study authors used data about participants’ self-reported happiness (“Overall, do you feel happy in your life?”), the number of children, and their gender (“How many biological children do you have (including deceased children)? How many sons and daughters do you have (including deceased children)?”). They also used data on participants’ gender, age, ethnicity, and various other pieces of sociodemographic information.
Results showed that, on average, parents were happier than non-parents. Participants with a larger number of children tended to be happier than those with fewer children, but only when participants aged 60 and above were considered. Parents with all-female offspring tended to be happier than those with all-male offspring, and this association was strongest among middle-aged parents and those who had exactly two daughters. Parents with a mix of sons and daughters did not report a statistically significant difference in happiness compared to those with only sons.
Additionally, the positive association between the number of children and happiness was more pronounced among men, urban residents, and those with a pension, whereas the happiness advantage of having only daughters was more pronounced among rural residents, middle-aged parents, and those with a spouse.
“It is important to interpret these findings with appropriate caution. As our analyses are based on data from the CGSS, the observed associations – particularly the pronounced positive association of the ‘two daughters’ combination in two-child families – should be viewed as sample-specific evidence within the contemporary Chinese context. The generalizability of these patterns to other cultural settings or time periods remains to be established through future cross-cultural and cross-national research,” the study authors added.
The study contributes to the scientific knowledge about factors associated with psychological well-being. However, it should be noted that happiness was assessed using a single item, so the reliability and particularly the temporal stability of such ratings remain unknown. Additionally, the design of the study does not allow any causal inferences to be derived from the results. Therefore, it remains unknown whether having children makes people happier, whether happier people are more likely to decide to have children, or whether this association is caused by some other factor.
The paper, “Who reports higher happiness? The association between number of children, gender composition of offspring and parental happiness,” was authored by Zhong Fei and Wenqin Jin.
