Divorce likely 'if husband is happier than wife'

Economists at Deakin University have carried out studies and found that divorce is more likely if married couples have different happiness levels - especially if the husband is happier.

For the study, the economists analysed data from three different countries — Australia, Germany and Britain — and found that the higher the gap in happiness, even during the first year of marriage, the higher the risk of divorce.

Also, in three countries across all couples, women were happier than men. But men were happier than women during marriage only for those couples whose marriages ended with divorce, the study found. Lead economist Dr Cahit Guven said: “We found that the gap in happiness is typically several times higher for couples in de facto relationships than for those who are married.

“Interestingly, the happiness gap decreases after the divorce for the divorced couples. However, the happiness gap between the divorced spouses after the divorce is still higher than those couples who stay married.

“This shows that they have made a bad choice at the beginning and the happiness gap stays at some level and does not disappear even though they are not together anymore.”
Dr Guven said: “Evidence is also emerging to suggest that people have a happiness baseline which may flow according to life events, but it rarely stays below a certain level.