Happy together

The next time your spouse is feeling down, it would be worth your while to cheer him or her up. New research shows that when people feel more satisfied with life, their spouses also feel more satisfied.

The effect of a partner’s happiness can be huge. For example, the study found, the major stress that accompanies losing a job can be completely offset by a spouse’s increased happiness.

“Marriage in this case can be seen as a kind of insurance,” says lead researcher Nattavudh Powdthavee, an economist at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. “If I become unhappy for some reason, my wife and I will have a common interest in making me happier.”

Although it may seem obvious that a happier husband makes a happier wife and vice versa, the study found this pattern only holds for married pairs. Unmarried couples who live together do not experience the same level of shared emotions.

“It’s possible that cohabitating people care more about personal autonomy and less about each other’s well-being,” Powdthavee says.

His team analyzed data -- from 9,704 married couples and 3,300 couples who live together -- collected from 1996 to 2000 and in 2002 as part of the British Household Panel Survey. The research was presented at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference on Tuesday.