The effect of children on a couple's satisfaction
The result has been constant in the literature for fifty years, and it is regularly misreported. What it says exactly deserves spelling out.
A constant result
Longitudinal studies following couples before and after the birth of a first child record, on average, a drop in reported marital satisfaction. The result is old, replicated in several countries, and confirmed by meta-analyses, one of them conducted in 2003 by Jean Twenge, Keith Campbell and Craig Foster.
The drop is more marked among mothers than among fathers, and more marked when the birth comes close to the start of the relationship. It is also stronger in recent samples than in older ones.
What the figure does not say
It is an average, and the dispersion is considerable: a share of couples see their satisfaction increase. Reporting the result as if all couples were concerned is a common distortion.
It also bears on marital satisfaction, measured by scales concerning the quality of the relationship between the two adults. It measures neither general well-being nor life satisfaction, which obey other dynamics and give different results.
The comparison group problem
An important methodological objection is often omitted. Marital satisfaction declines on average with the duration of the relationship, including among childless couples. Comparing a couple with itself before and after a birth therefore measures both the effect of the child and the effect of time.
Studies that include a childless comparison group find a smaller effect of its own than before-and-after comparisons do. It is a useful example of how a robust result can be overestimated through a design flaw.
What modulates the effect
Several factors recur: the division of tasks and its gap with what had been anticipated, the support available outside the couple, material resources, and sleep. The mismatch between the expected organisation and the actual one appears recurrently.
These factors have one thing in common: they describe conditions rather than feelings. That is a point that popular accounts of the subject erase in favour of psychological explanations.
How to read this kind of result
Three questions are enough. Is this an average or an effect observed in most cases. Is there a comparison group. And is the indicator measured the one being talked about, here marital satisfaction and not happiness.
Applied to this result, they give a nuanced and usable reading: a real average drop, overestimated by comparisons without a control, very dispersed, and associated with material conditions more than with dispositions.
Key points
The average drop in marital satisfaction after a birth is an old result, replicated and confirmed by meta-analysis.
It is a very dispersed average, and a share of couples experience the opposite change.
Satisfaction also declines with duration among childless couples: without a comparison group, the effect of its own is overestimated.
This article describes documented mechanisms and disagreements. It recommends no position, no party and no vote, and commits to no reading other than that of the work it cites.
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