Which is the best country to be a parent?

Just how happy can a child make you? The answer, it turns out, could depend on where you live. At least that’s according to a major study of 22 countries that compared the happiness of adults with and without children.

By using a survey to score people’s general happiness levels – rather than just asking aboutaparent’s satisfaction with having children – researchers from the University of Texas concluded there was a significant ‘happiness gap’ between the two groups.

Which group was better off varied between countries, with parents in nations such as the UK beingmore than8 per cent less happy than non-parents on average. This gap widensto 12 per cent in the US.

However, this ‘parental happiness deficit’ doesn’t occur everywhere. Parents in some countries – particularly inthosenations with low fertility rates and more generous child benefit policies, such as paid time off and childcare subsidies – are significantly happier than non-parents. Such countries include Portugal (where parents are nearly 8 per cent happier than non-parents), Hungary (4.6 per cent) and Spain (3.1 per cent).