Gay Dads are Happier: Subjective Well-Being Among Gay and Heterosexual Fathers

Abstract

With gay fatherhood increasing in numbers worldwide, and preliminary research showing that gay fathers might not experience the “parenthood paradox”—an increase in meaning in life along with a decrease in subjective well-being associated with becoming parents—it was our objective to compare gay fathers' well-being to that of heterosexual fathers. It was hypothesized that gay fathers would be higher on subjective well-being in general, and specifically on its global and cognitive aspects, but not on its affective aspects. This was based on the notion that by being parents, gay fathers may reach high subjective standards by which they compare themselves to others, which relates to their global and cognitive subjective well-being. However, both gay and heterosexual fathers experience similar daily events as parents, which should equally contribute to their affective subjective well-being. In order to test this hypothesis, 90 gay fathers were sampled from a larger sample of 317 Israeli men, and were compared with 90 individually matched heterosexual counterparts. In accordance with our hypothesis, gay fathers reported significantly higher levels of subjective well-being in comparison to heterosexual fathers, and only on its global and cognitive aspects. Possible interpretations of the findings were discussed.

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