ABSTRACT
Life satisfaction is one of the most popular tools for evaluating one’s general life success. Satisfaction with life is interpreted as a cumulative outcome indicator about the personal evaluation of life success (Suldo and Huebner 2004, 2006). Although marriage and children remain an essential part of family life in Europe, the share of never-married persons, cohabitating persons and persons without children increases in Europe (Perelli-Harris and Lyons-Amos 2015; Sobotka and Toulemon 2008; Thomson 2014). At the same time, research about life satisfaction in different family types is limited predominantly to country studies and seldom investigates the total costs or benefits of marriage over cohabitation and the influence of societal support on this.
