When it comes to who is happier, people with kids or those without, most research points to the latter. But a new study suggests that parents are happier than non-parents later in life, when their children move out and become sources of social enjoyment rather than stress.

当涉及到有孩子的人还是没有孩子的人谁更快乐这个问题上，大多数研究结果都指向后者。但一项新的研究表明，当孩子搬出去后，孩子对于父母来说从压力来源变为了社交乐趣时，有孩子的人比没有孩子的人更快乐。

Most surveys of parental happiness have focused on those whose children still live at home. These tend to show that people with kids are less happy than their child-free peers because they have less free time, sleep and money.

大多数关于父母幸福感的调查都集中在那些孩子仍然住在家里的父母身上。这往往会让研究表明，有孩子的人比没有孩子的同龄人更不快乐，因为他们的空闲时间、睡眠时间和金钱都更少。

Christoph Becker at Heidelberg University in Germany and his colleagues wondered if the story might be different for parents whose kids have left home. To find out, they analysed data from a European survey that asked 55,000 people aged 50 and older about their emotional well-being.

德国海德堡大学的克里斯托弗·贝克尔和他的同事们想知道，对于孩子已经搬出去住的父母来说，情况是否会有所不同。为了找到答案，他们分析了一项欧洲调查的数据，该调查询问了5.5万名年龄在50岁及以上的人的情绪健康状况。

They found that, in this older age group, people with children had greater life satisfaction and fewer symptoms of depression than people without children, but only if their kids had left home.

他们发现，在这个年龄较大的群体中，有孩子的人比没有孩子的人有着更大的生活满意度和更少的抑郁症状，但前提是他们的孩子已经离开了家。
Returning the favour爱好的回归

This may be because when children grow up and move out, they provide social enrichment to their parents minus the day-to-day stress of looking after them, says Becker. They may also give something back by providing care and financial support to their parents, he says. “Hence, children’s role as caregivers, financial support or simply as social contact might outweigh negative aspects of parenthood,” he says.

贝克尔说，这可能是因为当孩子长大搬出去后，他们为父母提供了丰富的社交活动，而父母也没有了每天照顾他们的压力。他说，孩子也可能通过提供照顾和经济支持来回报父母。他说:“因此，孩子作为照顾者、经济支持或仅仅作为社交接触的角色，可能会抵消或超过给父母带来的负面影响。”

The picture is similar in the US, says Nicholas Wolfinger at the University of Utah. He recently analysed 40 years of data from the US General Social Survey and found that empty-nest parents aged 50 to 70 were 5 to 6 per cent more likely to report being very happy than those with kids still at home.

犹他大学的尼古拉斯·沃尔芬格表示，美国的情况也类似。他最近分析了美国社会综合调查40年来的数据，发现50至70岁的空巢父母报告自己非常幸福的可能性比那些仍有孩子在家的父母高5%至6%。