Marital Status and Personal Happiness: An Analysis of Trend Data

This report analyzes General Social Survey data from 1972 through 1989 on the personal happiness of married and never-married individuals. Earlier studies (Glenn and Weaver, 1988) had reported a significant decrease in the difference between these two categories, with the advantage of the married progressively declining from 1972 through 1986. This article shows that the process reversed somewhat during the latter part of the 1980s, with the effect of marriage on happiness returning to fairly typical levels in 1987 and 1988 after several years of relatively minimal differences in the early part of the decade. However, the difference diminished once again in 1989. The analysis shows that never-married males and younger never-married females were happier in the late 1980s than in the 1970s, and that younger married women were somewhat less happy in the late 1980s than in the 1970s. These trends, however, are generally weaker than earlier evidence suggested.