Does Having Kids Make you Happy? Maybe, Maybe Not

If you just didn't think that procreating was the end-all, be-all, turns out, you may be right--at least when it comes to your overall happiness.

According to researchers from Princeton University, they found that while parents with low levels of income and education with babies are typically basking in the glow of new life, parents with higher levels of education? Maybe, maybe not.

For the study, Angus Deaton, an economist at Princeton University, and colleague Arthur Stone, a psychiatry researcher at Stony Brook University in New York, analyzed data from 1.77 million people in the United States and 1 million from over 161 other countries from 2008 to 2012.

Survey participants indicated whether they had children in the home as well as answered several questions that included ratings on a 0 to 10 scale (10 being the best life possible and 0 being the worst.)

According to LiveScience, previous studies have shown different results regarding life and parenting. For instance, some research has suggested that for young parents, happiness declines with the birth of each additional child. However, for bigger families, this story is not the case. In other cases, parenting may always be a time of happiness and joy, while other times, it could greatly dampen a marriage or partnership--both emotionally and financially.

Overall, the study results showed that those with children at home tended to rate their lives higher than those without children. However, such control variables as health, income and level of religiousness linked to life-satisfaction changed the outcome.

Unfortunately, the researchers note that as those who were unable to conceive but wanted children were not included in the study, whether parents are happier than non-parents cannot be fully determined at this time.

Either way, having children is a personal choice (at least we hope!) and findings from numerous studies, including this one, support that.

"People who have children, by and large, want children," Deaton said, via LiveScience. "People who don't want children are people who, by and large, don't want to have children. And why would you expect one set to be happier than another?"

What do you think?

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.