5-year DINK couples are happiest!

What is your definition of happiness?

According to a London-based survey, "Britain's happiest couples are married but childless and less than five years into their relationship."

Read the entire story here.

The study has been commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council and will follow the lives of 40,000 households, interviewing 100,000 individuals of all ages, for at least the next 20 years. The data will be gathered every year in face-to-face interviews and made available to government departments, social policy units and academic researchers.

Some interesting findings:

• According to the data gathered so far, happiness with one's partner declines with the duration of the union and with a person's age. Marriages are happier than cohabiting unions, a trend that rises for better-educated people. In turn, children are happier with their family situation if their parents are happy.
• The happiest relationships are those less than five years in duration, between two people educated to degree level, who have no children and where the man is employed.
• The decline in happiness is steeper for women than men. Overall, older people are less happy in their relationships.

Although this is a British survey, I find it thoroughly applicable to cosmopolitan Indian families/couples as well. And with more and more Indian couples having a double income and marrying young; it seems to prove this theory.

What do you think?