Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye
So I wondered what benefits people get out of being married. Sure, there’s legal benefits – but I’m going to ignore those. Second, I do not ask ‘why people get married.’ I intend to focus the benefits and outcomes of being married.
Soons & Kalmijn (2009) obtained data (via survey and interview) from a total of 31, 465 individuals across 30 European countries, and looked at the difference between Married Couples and Unmarried Cohabitating Couples. The literature hint at a gap in well-being between the two groups, with some studies supporting greater well-being for Married Couples and some reporting no effect at all. (…)
Soons & Kalmijn (2009) found that in most countries married folk had higher levels of well-being than cohabitants, but found that, in a few select countries (such as Iceland) there was a reverse gap favoring cohabitants.
