有孩子会让你更快乐——在他们搬出去的时候

有孩子会让你更快乐——在他们搬出去的时候

Having children will make you happier than staying childless, according to a new study, but not until later in life, when they have flown the nest.

根据一项新的研究，有孩子会让你比没有孩子更快乐，但要到晚年，当他们飞出巢穴时才会这样。

A team of researchers at Heidelberg University in Germany found that parents tend to be happier than non-parents in old age, but this only holds if their kids have moved out.

德国海德堡大学的一组研究人员发现，为人父母的人在年老时往往比没有为人父母的人更幸福，但这只在他们的孩子搬出去的情况下才成立。

Previous research has suggested that parenthood, social networks and marital status affect the well-being and mental health of older people, and this latest study looks at the effects of family status.

之前的研究表明，父母、社交网络和婚姻状况会影响老年人的幸福感和心理健康，而这项最新研究着眼于家庭状况的影响。

Scientists asked 55,000 people age 50 and over from 16 European countries about their mental well-being, and results suggest "the positive aspects of parenthood dominate when getting older."

科学家对来自16个欧洲国家的5.5万名50岁及以上的人进行了调查，询问他们的心理健康状况。结果表明“随着年龄增长，为人父母的积极方面占主导。”

One of the biggest factors is that children become a form of social support, and the researchers point out that social support networks are associated with greater happiness and less loneliness and can act as a buffer against stressful events.

其中一个最大的因素是，儿童成为社会支持的一种形式，研究人员指出，社会支持网与更大的幸福感和更少的孤独感有关，有缓冲压力的作用。

"As stress associated with balancing the competing demands of childcare, work and personal life decreases, once people get older and their children leave (home), the importance of children as caregivers and social contacts might prevail."

“随着平衡育儿、工作和个人生活的相互竞争需求所带来的压力减少，一旦人们变老，他们的孩子离开(家)，儿童作为照顾者和社会联系的重要性可能会占上风。”

However, children who still live at home are shown to have a negative effect on well-being.

然而，仍然住在家里的孩子会对幸福感产生负面影响。

Christoph Becker, who formed part of the research team, told CNN that having a social network corresponds to greater life satisfaction, but that doesn't have to come from children.

克里斯托弗·贝克尔是该研究小组的成员之一，他告诉CNN，拥有一个社交网络意味着更高的生活满意度，但这并不一定来自孩子。

Older people without children could get similar benefits from other close social connections with whom they can share issues and problems, he added.

他补充说，没有孩子的老年人也可以从其他亲密的社会关系中得到类似的好处，他们可以与这些人分享问题。

Becker told CNN there are plans to track happiness for the same people over multiple years to study how well being evolves as people get older.

贝克尔在接受CNN采访时表示，他们计划对同一群人的幸福感进行多年追踪，以研究他们随着年龄的增长幸福感的变化。

"Literature has suggested that there might be U-shaped connection between age and happiness: people become less happy in middle age, but more happy in older age," said Becker.

贝克尔说:“有文献表明，年龄和幸福感之间可能存在u型关系:人们在中年时不那么快乐，但在老年时更快乐。”

"We want to test if we find a similar relationship in our data, depending again on parenthood and social networks."

“我们想测试我们的数据中是否发现了类似的关系，这同样取决于父母和社交网络。

Another study, by the Open University in England, found childless couples were happier with their relationships and their partners than parents were, and were doing more work on their relationships than parenting couples.

英国开放大学的另一项研究发现，没有孩子的夫妻比为人父母的人对他们的人际关系和伴侣更满意，他们在处理人际关系方面比有孩子的夫妻做得更多。