Divorce or Separation May Be Worse for Child Happiness Than Poverty

Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage.
From An opinion on film.

Today The Daily Mail reports on something that you may already suspect:  divorce or separation of parents has a more negative effect on children's life satisfaction than poverty. This information comes from a new survey by the Understanding Society, a British government-funded organization.

Initial findings show that British children rank lower in overall life satisfaction than children in other developed countries. Parental happiness plays a big role in how happy they feel. They also experience a higher prevalence of bullying than children in the United States.

The researchers interviewed 34,500 people, including 2,000 children between 10 and 15 years old. The organization hopes to survey around 100,000 people every year to gain a deeper understanding of issues such as health, crime, finances, and work.

Professor Nick Buck, the director of Understanding Society, says, "We are collecting a much richer set of data than the national census, for instance, and I think this is going to lead to a major change in the way social research is performed, to understand how individual wellbeing and happiness is developed, and how behavior impacts on later outcomes."