The New York Times rolls out the findings of the happiness economists David G. Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England. They surveyed people on money, love, sex and happiness.
Eric Dash writes (excerpt):
Furthermore, the economists compared the levels of happiness produced by a vigorous sex life with other activities whose economic values had been calculated in prior research, allowing them to impute, in dollars, how much happiness sex was worth. They also estimated that increasing the frequency of sexual intercourse from once a month to at least once a week provided as much happiness as putting $50,000 in the bank.
A lasting marriage, by comparison, offers about $100,000 worth of happiness a year – that is, on average, a single person would need to receive $100,000 annually to be as happy as a married person with the same education, job status and other characteristics. Divorce, on the other hand, imposes an emotional toll of about $66,000 a year, though there may be a short-term economic gain from the immediate relief provided by leaving your spouse.