Children living with a step-parent or a lone parent are as happy as those living with two biological parents, recent research has claimed.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from NatCen Social Research as part of a major UK study on wellbeing, was discussed at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference.
Researchers found that whether the children lived with two biological parents, with a step-parent and biological parent, or in a single parent family, made no difference: 64% said they were happy ‘sometimes or never’, and 36% said they were ‘happy all the time’.
Even when the researchers statistically removed the effects of other factors such as parental social class so that the effects of family type were isolated, the results showed no significant differences.
Jenny Chanfreau, Senior Researcher at NatCen, said that, in contrast, relationships with parents and other children were strongly linked with how likely the children were to be happy. For instance, factors such as getting on well with siblings and not being bullied at school were associated with being happy all the time.
“It’s the quality of the relationships in the home that matters – not the family composition,” Jenny Chanfreau explained. “Getting on well with siblings, having fun with the family at weekends, and having a parent who reported rarely or never shouting when the child was naughty, were all linked with a higher likelihood of being happy all the time among seven-year olds.”
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