Children and Marital Happiness: A Further Specification of the Relationship

Abstract

The effects of the presence of children on their parents' marital happiness were estimated, with data from six U. S. national surveys conducted from 1973 through 1978, for subpopulations delineated on the basis of sex, race, level of education, religious preference, employment status, and stated ideal number of children for a ,family. No evidence for distinctly positive mean effects was found for any subpopulation, the estimated mean effects ranging from distinctly negative (for most of the subpopulations) to near zero for whites who said that the ideal number of children for a family is four or more. The findings contribute to a rather large body of accumulating evidence which indicates that on the average children adversely affect marital quality, both in the total population of married persons in the U. S. and in several large and important subpopulations. Some implications of the findings are discussed.