How big is the child-shaped hole in a childless woman’s heart ? Not too big, finds Bryan:
Controlling for real income, church attendance, age, and marital status, men take a bigger happiness hit from kids than women, just as I said. On a 1-3 scale, every child predicts a 0.021 reduction in male happiness, but only a 0.016 reduction in female happiness.
However, I later noticed that controling for gender reverses the result, because all else equal, the average women is a little happier than the average man. Adding a gender control to my previous specification, each child reduces male happiness by .014, and female happiness by .022. That’s still really small – by way of comparison, married people have score about .19 units higher than singles in both specifications. But qualitatively, the data support Will’s claim that on balance, being a parent is harder on women than men.
Pat Buchanan says DINKs herald the end of Western Civilization. But they don’t seem too bothered about it.