Marriage May Be a Key to Happiness

There are caveats, of course. In recent years, women’s happiness has declined a little bit (and Peltzman emphasizes a little bit). But in the previous period, women’s happiness was rising compared with men’s. “My interpretation of this history is that gender is not an especially important category for studying happiness differences today,” he writes. In the big picture, he says, gender as a factor is “trivial compared with marriage or income.”

Race and income do seem to have a pronounced effect. Historically, white people have reported greater happiness than Black people. However, this gap appears to be shrinking as Black people began reporting increased happiness over recent years, and levels for white people fell.

A long-running, central question is: “Does money buy happiness?” On an individual level, it seems to, Peltzman finds. The data show a nearly linear relationship between higher household income and happiness. Since the 1970s, happiness among those in the top percentile of household income has remained flat, and happiness at the bottom has declined.

The survey asks people to rate their position on the political spectrum. Overall, in the entire sample studied, around a quarter identified as liberal, and the rest split roughly equally between moderate and conservative—proportions that haven’t changed over time. Peltzman finds that conservatives are 9 percentage points happier than liberals and 7 points happier than moderates. Those who said they trust the government are 18 percentage points happier than those who said they don’t, he finds.

Peltzman’s study demonstrates that while the general gauge depicts a largely contented population, happiness starts to differ when you dissect it by marriage, income, and other socioeconomic factors. In the face of all that, the age-old institution of marriage continues to hold its ground. Whether attributable to stability, companionship, or other factors, marriage’s role in shaping happiness remains undeniable.