London - Stay-at-home mothers are more likely to think their lives are worthwhile than women who go to work, a study of national happiness suggests.
They tend not to suffer from boredom, frustration or feelings of worthlessness, according to the research on Britain’s wellbeing.
Full-time mothers gave the value of their lives a score of eight out of ten, compared to 7.8 for people in work.
Data also revealed that married people are significantly more contented than cohabitees and much happier than single or divorced people.
The report from the Office for National Statistics on personal well-being looked at the happiness of people who are economically inactive – the class into which full-time mothers fall.
While those who stay at home scored the worth of their lives higher than those who go to work, scores for happiness, life satisfaction and anxiety levels were broadly the same.
The ONS figures do not include a breakdown that reveals whether men or women at work are the happier. Nor is there any data to show the difference in contentment between full-time mothers who are married or cohabiting, and those who are single parents.
But the findings do show that married people and cohabitees are much happier than single people – which suggests that married or cohabiting stay-at-home mothers feel their lives are more worthwhile than working people.
Married people were also found to be more satisfied and less anxious than cohabitees.
The findings are based on a survey of around 165 000 people, who were asked how satisfied, worthwhile, happy or anxious they felt about their lives.
A total of 77 percent gave their satisfaction levels at least seven out of 10 – a year-on-year rise of 1.2 percent. Some 81 percent rated their lives as worthwhile with a score of seven or more, while the average value for life satisfaction rose from 7.4 to 7.5.
The ONS said last year’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Olympics and Paralympics may also have raised peoples’ spirits.
“All of those could potentially have influenced people’s assessment of how well their life is going and how they feel overall and generally raise their spirits,” said spokesperson Dawn Snape.
Unemployment has also been falling since late 2011 and job vacancies rising since early 2012.
The well-being measures have shown that unemployment is a major cause of disenchantment and unhappiness.
* Sienna Miller is so happy being a stay-at-home mother that she would only return to work for a “spectacular” role, she has revealed.
The 31-year-old actress took on one role as Nancy Schultz in the film Foxcatcher after the birth of her daughter Marlowe in July last year but said she has ruled out further work for the time being.
She said: “I have technically been on a break. I got a film that was too good not to do, that I shot from September to December.
“It was amazing but it was hard at that period with the baby so I vowed to take the rest of the year off.”
Miss Miller, engaged to actor Tom Sturridge, 27, described her lifestyle in her twenties as “hectic” and added: “I was all over the place, working and moving house. You’re working at a speed that, for me, was not particularly fulfilling. I got a little bit disillusioned. I felt like I needed to take a bit of a break and re-evaluate things, which I did.”
She said Foxcatcher, the tale of a wrestling champion, which is not yet released, is a “fascinating, true story.”
“I felt, having done that, that unless it’s of that calibre, it’s not worth not being with my baby. Unless it’s something spectacular, I really want to be a mother.” - Daily Mail