Single women are happier

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

It takes a lot of religion to keep people from seeing this:

We may have suspected it already, but now the science backs it up: unmarried and childless women are the happiest subgroup in the population. And they are more likely to live longer than their married and child-rearing peers, according to a leading expert in happiness.

Speaking at the Hay festival on Saturday, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, said the latest evidence showed that the traditional markers used to measure success did not correlate with happiness – particularly marriage and raising children.

“Married people are happier than other population subgroups, but only when their spouse is in the room when they’re asked how happy they are. When the spouse is not present: fucking miserable,” he said.

“We do have some good longitudinal data following the same people over time, but I am going to do a massive disservice to that science and just say: if you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother.”

Men benefited from marriage because they “calmed down”, he said. “You take less risks, you earn more money at work, and you live a little longer. She, on the other hand, has to put up with that, and dies sooner than if she never married. The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children,” he said.

Also this:

Jennifer Aniston is 50 and STILL being asked these questions. Apparently, she can’t possibly be happy unless she’s married and has babies.

Personally, banging hot dudes and hanging out in a bikini sipping margaritas by the pool seems like a pretty awesome life to me. She seems a lot happier than any of her exes.

And this:

I deeply envy her life, and it’s probably even better now that she doesn’t have to worry about what her fans think when she *gasp* openly talks about not wanting to be a mother. I seem to remember her dancing around the question for years (presumably not to alienate her base) because there are surprisingly tons of people that take deep personal offense when someone else says they don’t want children.

Post external references

  1. 1
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-happier-without-children-or-a-spouse-happiness-expert
  2. 2
    https://jezebel.com/taylor-swift-does-not-have-to-answer-questions-about-ha-1835035916
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