New research by Sam Peltzman finds that married individuals consistently report significantly higher happiness levels than unmarried individuals across all demographics. Using five decades of survey data, the study reveals a persistent “marital premium” in happiness, raising questions about why this gap remains stable despite major social changes.
A new paper by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professor emeritus Sam Peltzman examines the relationship between marriage and self-reported happiness, finding a persistent and substantial phenomenon that married people report being significantly happier than unmarried people across virtually all demographic groups.
The paper, “The Anatomy of Marital Happiness,” builds on Peltzman’s 2023 research on the socio-political factors affecting happiness. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS) spanning 1972-2018, Peltzman quantifies what he calls the “marital premium”—the difference in happiness between married and unmarried individuals.
To measure happiness, the study uses responses to a consistent GSS question asking whether respondents are “very happy,” “pretty happy,” or “not too happy.” Peltzman creates a happiness score by subtracting the percentage of respondents answering “not too happy” from those answering “very happy,” treating “pretty happy” as neutral.
The key finding is that married individuals score about 31 points higher on this happiness scale than unmarried individuals—a gap that has remained remarkably stable across different demographic groups and time periods. The average happiness score for married respondents is around 33, while unmarried respondents average 1.8.
This marital premium persists even when examining subgroups by:
– Gender (similar premium for men and women)
– Age (consistent from young adults through to the elderly)
– Race (comparable premiums for Black and white respondents)
– Education level (present across all education groups)
– Income (exists throughout income distribution)
The study explores several potential explanations for the marital happiness premium, including children and sexual activity.
Children: Having children does not appear to explain the marital premium. Married couples without children report similar or sometimes higher happiness levels compared to those with children. The study finds that very young childless couples are among the happiest groups, while older couples with children still at home report lower happiness levels.
Sexual Activity: While sexual activity correlates with higher happiness for both married and unmarried individuals, the marital premium remains substantial even after accounting for frequency of sexual activity. Even sexually active unmarried individuals report lower happiness than married individuals with minimal sexual activity.
Recent trends in marriage patterns add context to these findings. Marriage rates have declined substantially since the 1970s, from around 80% to 60% of households. This decline has been uneven across society, with college graduates showing the smallest decline in marriage rates with just 12 percentage points, while non-college graduates saw 26-30 percentage point declines.
When it comes to variability by income, Peltzman finds that the richest unmarried persons have about the same odds of happiness as the poorest who are married.
“So is the unmarried prince happier than a married pauper?” asks Peltzman. “The odds are no better than even. But the prince’s odds go up substantially if he has found a princess.”
The study also examines newer household arrangements. Cohabitation has increased from nearly zero in the 1970s to about 7% of households today. While cohabiting couples report higher happiness than other unmarried individuals, they still score substantially below married couples – what Peltzman calls a “10-20 rule”: cohabiting couples are about 10 points happier than other unmarried individuals but 20 points less happy than married couples.
For same-sex couples, the data suggest patterns similar to heterosexual couples, though the shorter history of legal same-sex marriage limits conclusive findings. Within each sexual orientation group, married individuals report higher happiness than unmarried individuals by roughly similar margins.
The research identifies some variations in the marital premium. For example, it is somewhat larger for lower-income households while it tends to be smaller among those with higher education levels. The premium may not necessarily be stable over a person’s lifetime, as it exhibits some fluctuation across age groups and peaks around ages 50-55.
Yet these variations are relatively minor compared to the overall consistency of the premium across groups. As Peltzman notes in the paper: “There is a substantial marital premium for every group and sub-group I analyze, and this premium is usually close to the overall 30-point average.”
The stability of this premium presents something of a puzzle, as it has persisted despite massive social changes since the 1970s, including increased female labor force participation, changing gender roles, evolving family structures, and shifting social attitudes toward marriage.
The research raises questions about causation that it cannot fully answer: Does marriage make people happier, do happier people tend to marry, or do other factors drive both marriage and happiness? The study’s descriptive statistics cannot definitively address these questions.
The findings may have implications for understanding broader social trends, including the declining marriage rate’s potential relationship to documented decreases in overall happiness. However, as Peltzman emphasizes, the results describe population-level patterns and should not be interpreted as having clear implications for individual cases or public policy.
These patterns emerge from analysis of over 53,000 survey responses across nearly five decades, providing a comprehensive picture of the relationship between marriage and self-reported happiness in American society. While the study cannot fully explain why marriage correlates so strongly with happiness, it documents the remarkable consistency of this relationship across diverse population groups and time periods.
Author disclosure: ProMarket writers are employed by the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. Sam Peltzman is former director of this center.
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.
