Women are happier without children or a spouse, says happiness expert
专家说了，不婚不育的女人更幸福！
We may have suspected it already, but now the science backs it up: unmarried and childless women are the happiest subgroup in the population. And they are more likely to live longer than their married and child-rearing peers, according to a leading expert in happiness.
你可能早就怀疑过，而现在科学已经证实了这一点：未婚的和无子女的女性是人群中最幸福的群体——一位幸福研究专家称，比起已婚女性及有子女的同龄人，这些女性更为长寿。
Speaking at the Hay festival on Saturday, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, said the latest evidence showed that the traditional markers used to measure success did not correlate with happiness – particularly marriage and raising children.
在周六的海伊文学节上，伦敦经济学院行为科学方面的教授Paul Dolan发表了演讲，称最新的研究显示，一些传统意义上的成功标志和幸福感之间并不成正比，尤其是结婚生子这件事。
“Married people are happier than other population subgroups, but only when their spouse is in the room when they’re asked how happy they are. When the spouse is not present: fucking miserable,” he said.
他说：“被问及是否感到幸福，女性只有在伴侣在调研现场时才会说自己是幸福的。而当伴侣不在身边时，她们的回答则是：太**痛苦了。”。
“We do have some good longitudinal data following the same people over time, but I am going to do a massive disservice to that science and just say: if you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother.”
“我们确实通过持续追踪同一群人，得到了一些优质的纵向数据，但我要彻底抛开科学，简单粗暴地宣布：如果你是男人，你可能应该结婚；如果你是女人，还是算了吧。”
Men benefited from marriage because they “calmed down”, he said. “You take less risks, you earn more money at work, and you live a little longer. She, on the other hand, has to put up with that, and dies sooner than if she never married. The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children,” he said.
他说，男人结婚后能“稳定下来”，因而从中受益。“男性会更少冒险，在工作中挣着更多的钱，并且活得更长一些。而女性则不得不忍受男婚姻，并且会死得更早。最健康快乐的人群是那些从未结婚、没生过孩子的女性，”他说。
Dolan’s latest book, Happy Ever After, cites evidence from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which compared levels of pleasure and misery in unmarried, married, divorced, separated and widowed individuals. The study found that levels of happiness reported by those who were married was higher than the unmarried, but only when their spouse was in the room. Unmarried individuals reported lower levels of misery than married individuals who were asked when their spouse was not present.
Dolan的新书《永远幸福在一起》引用了美国人时间使用调查的相关数据，该调查比较了未婚、已婚、离婚、分居和丧偶的人的快乐和痛苦程度。研究发现，已婚者的幸福感水平高于未婚者，但只有当他们的配偶在调研现场时才是这样。当配偶不在场时，已婚人士的痛苦程度则高于未婚人士。
Other studies have measured some financial and health benefits in being married for both men and women on average, which Dolan said could be attributed to higher incomes and emotional support, allowing married people to take risks and seek medical help.
其它的调查还衡量了结婚分别对男性和女性在金融和健康方面的积极影响。Dolan说这可以归因于更高的收入和感情上的支持让已婚者可以承担风险和寻求医疗帮助。
However, Dolan said men showed more health benefits from tying the knot, as they took fewer risks. Women’s health was mostly unaffected by marriage, with middle-aged married women even being at higher risk of physical and mental conditions than their singl e counterparts.
不过，Dolan表示结婚为男性的健康带来了更大的益处，因为他们承担了更少的风险。而女性的健康几乎不受婚姻的影响，中年已婚女性甚至比单身女性承担更高的生理及精神疾病的风险。
Despite the benefits of a single, childless lifestyle for women, Dolan said that the existing narrative that marriage and children were signs of success meant that the stigma could lead some single women to feel unhappy.
尽管单身、无子女对于女性来说有一定的好处，但Dolan表示，当前社会仍把婚姻和孩子当做女性成功的标志，这意味着单身或没有子女会被视为这些女性的污点，从而导致她们感到不快乐。
“You see a single woman of 40, who has never had children – ‘Bless, that’s a shame, isn’t it? Maybe one day you’ll meet the right guy and that’ll change.’ No, maybe she’ll meet the wrong guy and that’ll change. Maybe she’ll meet a guy who makes her less happy and healthy, and die sooner.”
Dolan 说：“当你看到一个40岁还没生过孩子的单身女人，你可能会说：“我的天哪，好可怜啊！愿你有天遇到对的人。”“不，她也可能遇到错的人，人生从此就不一样了。她可能遇人不淑、身心俱疲、折寿早逝。”
来源：the guardian
排版：马林
指导老师：刘佳
