“Social Policies, Parenthood, and Happiness in 22 Countries,” a briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Jennifer Glass, University of Texas; Robin Simon, Wake Forest University; and Matthew Andersson, Baylor University, used two well-respected surveys, the International Social Surveys of 2007 and 2008 and the European Social Surveys of 2006 and 2008, and found that the “happiness penalty” varies substantially from country to country, and is not an inevitable accompaniment of contemporary family life. This study highlights that, even when it comes to personal happiness, supporting working parents is not a zero-sum game.” 
 
 -further information- 
 
 A longer version of this peer-reviewed study will be published in the American Journal of Sociology in September 2016. June 16, 2016 
 
 Many people now know that parents in the United States report being less happy than nonparents, but there is considerable disagreement about why parents pay a “happiness penalty,” along with conflicting reports about whether this is true in most contemporary cultures. We utilized two well-respected surveys (the International Social Surveys of 2007 and 2008 and the European Social Surveys of 2006 and 2008), confining ourselves to data prior to the global recession in order to avoid confusing reports of happiness in a period of relative prosperity with reports taken in a period of economic stress. In a remarkable study of 22 countries presented today to the Council on Contemporary Families, researchers find that the parental “happiness penalty” is not universal or unavoidable, and they identify simple strategies that wipe out or even reverse the happiness differential between parents and non-parents. Every other country had smaller gaps, and some, including Russia, France, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Hungary, and Portugal, actually showed happiness gains for parents. The bad news is that of the 22 countries in the study, the U.S. has the largest happiness shortfall among parents compared to nonparents, significantly larger than the gap found in Great Britain and Australia. But why are parents so much less happy than the childfree in the U.S., when other countries show different patterns? People in the U.S. tend to say they are pretty happy overall: On a scale from 1-10, Americans hover in the 8-10 range. People in France tend to rate their levels significantly lower – in the middle of the scale from 5-7.  It’s an almost immutable fact: Regardless of what country you live in, and what stage of life you might be at, having kids makes you significantly less happy compared to people who don’t have kids. Accordingly, we focused on the differences between parents and non-parents in the same country, or the relative effects of parenting. They asked: “What factors are associated with parents being less happy than nonparents, given their country’s overall average level of happiness?” The key is association (or correlation), and not causation, which is impossible to prove in studies like this. The researchers investigated possible explanations for the happiness gap, including variations in family size and in the extent of unplanned births. Perhaps countries with more unexpected births and larger families end up with more parents who are unhappy and stressed-out. We looked at several specific government policies that we thought would make a difference in the lives of employed parents – the duration and generosity of paid parenting leave, the number of annual paid sick and vacation days guaranteed by law, the cost of child care for the average two-year old as a percent of median wages, and the extent of work schedule flexibility offered to parents of dependent children. “What we found was astonishing,” reported Glass, Simon and Andersson. “The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations. And this was true for both mothers and fathers. “When you have a system that is not very efficient in supporting parents, you can expect to have problems motivating people to have children and care for them.” 
 
 Conversely, she said, “People want to have more children when you make it possible for them to be effective parents and effective workers.” Furthermore, the positive effects of good family support policies for parents were not achieved at the expense of non-parents, as some commentators have claimed might be the case. The policies that helped parents the most were policies that also improved the happiness of everyone in that country, whether they had children or not. *Policies such as guaranteed minimum paid sick and vacation days make everyone happier, but they had an extra happiness bonus for parents of minor children. *Countries with cheaper out-of-pocket costs for child care had happier nonparents as well as parents. *Another striking finding was that giving money to parents in the form of child allowances or monthly payments had less effect on parental happiness than giving them the tools to combine employment with parenting. Many European countries have child allowances in varying amounts, but few of these policies had a significant impact on the relative happiness of mothers or fathers compared to non-parents. *Gender made little difference: Fathers’ happiness was slightly more sensitive to money policies (child care costs, specifically), and mothers’ happiness was slightly more sensitive to time policies (especially paid sick and vacation days). But these differences were minor. Parents consistently report lower happiness, mental well-being, and marital satisfaction than do childless couples and individuals. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT 
 
 Jennifer Glass 
 
 Barbara Bush Regents Professor of Liberal Arts 
 
 Executive Director, Council on Contemporary Families 
 
 Department of Sociology & Population Research Center 
 
 University of Texas – Austin 
 
 319-621-6304 
 
 Robin Simon 
 
 Professor of Sociology 
 
 Wake Forest University 
 
 robinwsimon54@gmail.com 
 
 Matthew Andersson 
 
 Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course 
 
 Yale University 
 
 *Starting this summer, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Baylor University 
 
 matthew.andersson@yale.edu
– The "happiness penalty" between parents and nonparents in the US—that is, in which nonparents report being happier than their counterparts—is wider than in any of the other 21 countries researchers have analyzed. Now those researchers say they've managed to pinpoint exactly why, and it all boils down to family support policies. "As social scientists we rarely completely explain anything, but in this case we completely" do, lead researcher Jennifer Glass tells Quartz. The researchers write that what they found "was astonishing": When there are good family support policies such as parental leave and paid vacation in place, "the parental deficit in happiness was completely eliminated, accomplished by raising parent’s happiness rather than lowering nonparents' happiness." The Chicago Tribune reports a slew of factors were considered: unplanned parenthood, guaranteed paid sick days, the flexibility of work schedules, and a country's GDP, things that allowed researchers to confirm that more unexpected pregnancies, bigger families, or living in a richer country weren't the drivers. "The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations." Further, those countries with the best policy "packages” had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents. Quips the Tribune, "It's almost like trying to raise children and earn a living in a country with zero weeks of guaranteed paid leave and child care that costs as much as college is draining. Who knew?" The peer-reviewed findings will appear in the American Journal of Sociology in September.