Parents are happier than non-parents: study

New research suggests that “parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning from life than non-parents,” according to a University of British Columbia media release.

Psychologists at UBC and the two California universities who took part in the study also concluded that “the benefits of parenthood appear more consistently in men and older and married parents.”

The research will appear in the journal Psychological Science.

“This series of studies,” said UBC psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn, who co-authored the study, “suggest that parents are not nearly the ‘miserable creatures’ we might expect from recent studies and popular representations.”