"Contrary to recent scholarship and popular belief, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without children, according to researchers from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University. Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada. [...] The findings are among a new wave of research that suggests that parenthood comes with relatively more positives, despite the added responsibilities. [...] The consistency of their findings across all three studies 'provides strong evidence challenging the widely held perception that children are associated with reduced well-being.'" [1]

These findings are from this paper, entitled In Defense of Parenthood: Children Are Associated With More Joy Than Misery [2], to be published in Psychological Science. [3]

From the abstract, "The results indicate that, contrary to previous reports, parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life."

[1] http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/...

[2] (Note: PDF) http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/papers/NKEDLinpress.pdf

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Science_%28journ...