Study finds marriage boosts life satisfaction in adults

Marriage has long been closely linked to life satisfaction. Its advantages go well beyond the financial gains of combining incomes. A supportive partnership can offer emotional stability, reinforce a sense of belonging and strengthen self-worth.

In recent years, however, the happiness gap between married and unmarried people has narrowed. The rise of cohabitation without formal marriage has reshaped traditional patterns. Reported happiness has increased among the unmarried while edging down among the married, complicating what was once seen as a straightforward connection between marriage and well-being.

A persistent question remains: Are happier people simply more likely to marry, or does marriage itself foster greater happiness? To examine this issue, Bruno Frey, a professor at the University of Zurich, analyzed changes in life satisfaction among 15,268 participants over 17 years in the German Socio-Economic Panel study. The findings showed that, holding other factors constant, married individuals scored 0.3 points higher on a 10-point life satisfaction scale than their unmarried counterparts. That margin is meaningful, roughly equivalent to the difference between someone earning 2.5 times the average household income and someone earning the average income. Even so, the relationship between marriage and life satisfaction remains nuanced rather than definitive.

Interestingly, people report their highest levels of life satisfaction not after marriage but just before it. Satisfaction typically rises as the wedding approaches, then tapers off in the years that follow. Many couples decide to marry when they believe the relationship will bring lasting happiness, and that expectation appears to crest on the eve of marriage.

The impact of marriage differs markedly across individuals. Those who enter marriage with relatively low life satisfaction are more likely to experience marital strain and face a higher risk of divorce. By contrast, people who marry at younger ages often report above-average life satisfaction at the outset.

Among unmarried adults, those who eventually marry tend to have higher life satisfaction beforehand than those who remain single. This pattern is less visible during the conventional marriageable years, when marriage is common across the population. Beyond that stage of life, however, the gap widens again, suggesting that among those who stay single into older age, individuals with greater life satisfaction are more likely to marry later on.

For some, marriage offsets personal disadvantages; for others, it amplifies existing strengths. Individuals who married partners with substantial income disparities reported lower life satisfaction before marriage than those whose income differences were smaller. After marriage, that gap largely disappeared, indicating that marriage mitigated earlier disadvantages. In contrast, couples with similar levels of education reported higher life satisfaction after marriage than those with wider educational gaps, implying that shared educational backgrounds may confer additional benefits.

Taken together, the German Socio-Economic Panel data suggest that happier individuals are more inclined to marry, and that marriage itself can enhance well-being. The gains appear strongest among those who begin with relatively high life satisfaction, marry at younger ages, and choose partners with comparable education levels and modest income differences.