Social Capital, Happiness, and the Unmarried: a Multilevel Analysis of 32 European Countries
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Social Capital, Happiness, and the Unmarried: a Multilevel Analysis of 32 European Countries Elyakim Kislev 1 Received: 14 March 2019 / Accepted: 27 June 2019/ # The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Vast changes to the status of marriage in modern society have impacted the demographic makeup of many countries. Particularly in the Western world, a growing portion of the population comprises of singles that may be separated, divorced, widowed, or never married. Faced with this change, it is crucial for researchers and policymakers to understand the mechanisms behind the well-being of the unmarried. This paper explores the relationship between social capital and happiness for different types of marital groups. By performing a multilevel analysis on data from 32 countries, this research demonstrates not only that singles present higher social capital which is positively correlated with higher happiness, but also derive greater happiness from equal levels of social capital. Furthermore, this paper explores potential consequences for further research in social capital, happiness, and marital status. Keywords Marriage . Singles . Cohabitation . Social capital . Happiness
Introduction The institution of marriage is undergoing vast changes: a rising average age of first marriage, increased rates of divorce, and a growing number of individuals who are actively choosing to not get married (Amato 2010; Santos and Weiss 2016). In Europe, more than 50% of households in major cities such as Munich, Frankfurt, and Paris is occupied by people living alone (Euromonitor 2013). In the United States, 22% of American adults were single in 1950, while today this number has jumped to more than 50% (Klinenberg 2012), and one in four American young adults is predicted to never get married (Wang and Parker 2014). At the same time, getting married before having children has become less prevalent in developed nations. The proportion of American
* Elyakim Kislev [email protected]
1
The Federmann School of Public Policy and Government, The Hebrew University, Campus Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel
E. Kislev
children living with two married parents decreased from 87% at the start of the 1960s to approximately 65% in the 2010s (Wang and Parker 2014). These changes, usually referred to as part of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) (Lesthaeghe 2014; Van de Kaa 2003), are attributed to many social transitions that began to take hold in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries: mass urbanization, increased longevity, the communications revolution, women’s rights movements, technological advances, and the rise of the welfare system (Santos and Weiss 2016; Quiroz 2013). The decline in marriage has many consequences, but one of the most burning questions is how it affects unmarried individuals’ happiness and well-being. Whereas many claim that marriage is positively correlated with subjective well-being, it is not entirely clear whether people are happier a
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