Steven Hayward, who posted this chart, makes much of the fact married fathers are happiest, and of course that is what the chart shows. He ignores that most of the variance is in the "married" part of the differentiation, while "children" make up a quite small additional bump up.
In actuality, the married are twice as likely as the unmarried to be very happy, whether or not they have children. When marriage was more prevalent among the lower social classes, there were far fewer "deaths of despair" in those cohorts. Some social trends are counterproductive.
The DrsC offer this Rx: Marry your best friend and have a good life.
