Does becoming a parent change the meaning of happiness and life satisfaction? Evidence from the European Social Survey

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether subjective well-being has a different psychological meaning for parents and childless respondents. We analyzed comparative data of the third round of the European Social Survey (ESS; N=10,913). After case-control matching, in line with previous work, we found that in some Eastern European countries and Ireland non-mothers report higher SWB levels than mothers. Mothers from the other countries and fathers reported higher SWB levels than non-mothers from these countries and non-fathers. However, resorting to structural equation modelling, we tested for measurement invariance across groups and no indication of differences between parents and childless respondents was found. Having established full scalar measurement invariance, it was determined that measurement is not responsible for the low SWB levels of mothers in some European countries.