The secret to happiness for millennial men is one that many older men have already discovered — have a child.
For millennials with some work experience employed at large global corporations, they “claimed significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their work and home lives than single men,” according to WGN.
Children, for millennial dads, brought out the best in them.
“With respect to their overall life satisfaction, millennial men were significantly more likely, ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent more likely, to feel that their life conditions were excellent, that they’d gotten the important things they wanted in life and that, in most ways, they were living close to their ideal,” Kelly Wallace wrote.
The findings are suspicious coming so close to Father’s Day, but millennials embrace fatherhood, even if they delay it more than their parents.
That’s likely the result of changing economic patterns that require young people to stay in school longer and delay independence. Fewer 20-year-olds get married today than in 1980, but it’s because men and women attempt to establish themselves economically rather than embracing a bohemian rejection of marriage and child-rearing.
The study, from the Boston College Center for Work & Family, found that millennial dads aren’t only saying they want to spend more time with the kids. They’re taking action to spend more time with their kids, which could explain higher life satisfaction.
That change could cause a change in business patterns throughout society.
“We are convinced that gender equity will never be attained until workplaces and society see men and fathers from a ‘whole person’ perspective. When we achieve that aim, we will have enhanced workplaces, created a more equitable society, and strengthened the most important building block to ensure our prosperity – the American family,” Brad Harrington, lead author and executive director of the Center for Work & Family, wrote.
The possibilities created by the new millennial dad could drive women’s advancement, too. “Recognizing men’s role in the home,” Harrington wrote, gives women the opportunity to renegotiate their role in the workforce and the family, too.
