The First Born Child May Lead To Less Happiness And Prevent Siblings

Couples whose happiness plummets after their first child will be less inclined to have children after that.

Scientists discover that the bigger "the perceived loss in wellbeing, the smaller the chance of a second baby", according to dailymail.

Surprisingly, the first baby leads to a greater feeling of loss than even divorce, unemployment or the death of a partner.

The study was conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, finding the effect more in well educated and older parents.

Mikko Myrskylä, demographer and new director at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, who worked with Rachel Margolis from the University of Western Ontario, said: "Parents' experience with and after the first birth help predict how large the family will be eventually. Politicians concerned about low birth rates should pay attention to the wellbeing of new parents around and after the birth of their first child."

In the study, researchers explored the use of "self-reported life satisfaction" in the German Socio-Economic Panel Study. Every year, 20,000 people rated their contentedness, on a scale from zero to 10, "with 10 indicating maximum wellbeing".

Reports showed that after the first born, parents reported a loss of wellbeing averaging 1.4 units on the happiness scale.

It was a reduction that was greater in the first year of compared to two years before the birth. Just under 30 per cent of the parents said that there was decline in wellbeing. Over one-third underwent a reduction of two or more units of happiness.

"The fact that parental happiness increases before these children are born suggests that we are capturing broader issues relating to childbearing such as couples forming partnerships and making plans for the future," said Mikko Myrskylä, according to medicaldaily.

This experience had an impact on the parents' wish for subsequent children. The scientists observed that just 58 of 100 couples who recorded a reduction in wellbeing of three units of more went for a second child in 10 years.

Of those who experienced no drop in happiness, 66 out of 100 hundred couples went in for a second baby.

Hence, families who had at least four members were almost 14 per cent larger only if they did not record any decline in the happiness, not in any way related to "income, place of birth, or marital status of the couples".

The study was published in the journal Demography.