Life satisfaction rises significantly when people move from living alone into a committed relationship and start living with a partner. This is shown by a new study from Bielefeld University and the University of Greifswald, both in Germany, and the University of Warwick in the UK. The analysis of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study ‘Understanding Society’ (UKHLS) included 1,103 participants. The findings show that life satisfaction is, on average, highest in the year after couples start living together. After that, it remains well above the level reported during single life for several years.
‘The beginning of a relationship is a turning point for life satisfaction, and a positive one. Moving in together brings stability above all. This is clearly evident from the data,’ explains the study’s first author, Dr Usama EL-Awad from the Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science at Bielefeld University.
Relationships make people happy
The greatest gain in life satisfaction occurs at the transition from singlehood into the relationship. If the relationship began a year before moving in together, cohabitation only stabilises the level. The positive effect lasts for at least two years.
The importance of marriage, however, has declined. According to the study, marriage increased life satisfaction more strongly in the 1980s and 1990s than it does today. ‘Marriage is less important in the early years of a relationship now than it used to be, probably due to social change and the growing acceptance of non-marital partnerships,’ says EL-Awad.
Positive effect regardless of age and sex
Overall, the study shows a clear positive connection between living in a partnership and well-being. ‘What is striking is that life satisfaction improves in the same way across all groups studied with the beginning of a relationship and moving in together,’ says psychologist Dr Theresa Entringer from the University of Greifswald and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), who co-authored the study. ‘The increase is independent of age, sex, income, or education.’
Professor Anu Realo from the University of Warwick, a co-author of the study, explains: ‘The transition from single life into a committed partnership leads to a sustained increase in life satisfaction, at least over the first years, and not just a short-lived “honeymoon effect.” The results therefore challenge the traditional view, that people quickly return to a genetically determined baseline state of well-being after positive or negative events.’
‘Even in our digital age, partnerships remain central to well-being,’ says the study’s senior author, Professor Sakari Lemola from the Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science at Bielefeld University. ‘ The need for a stable partnership is deeply rooted. It appears across cultures and can also be observed in monogamous animal species such as swans, albatrosses, and penguins.’
The datasets
The researchers used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study ‘Understanding Society’ (UKHLS). In both studies, several thousand people have been surveyed repeatedly about their living arrangements, well-being, and other topics — in SOEP since 1984 (around 20,000 households annually) and in UKHLS since 2009 (around 40,000 households annually).
From these two large datasets, the German-British research team identified 1,103 individuals who reported living alone as singles in at least one annual survey and who entered a partnership and moved in with their partner during the following two years. If the individuals remained with their partners — which was the case for the majority — their life satisfaction was tracked for another two years. Some of them also married during this period. The annual surveys made it possible to track changes in life satisfaction before and after these partnership transitions.
Published in the Journal of Personality
The study was published in the Journal of Personality (impact factor 2.7 according to Journal Citation Reports). The study is connected to Bielefeld University’s InChangE research focus, which investigates individualisation in changing environments.
Original publication
Usama El-Awad, Robert Eves, Justin Hachenberger, Theresa M. Entringer, Robin Goodwin, Anu Realo, Sakari Lemola: Mapping Life Satisfaction Over the First Years of Cohabitation Among Former Singles Living Alone in UK and Germany. Journal of Personality, https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.70013, published on August 18, 2025.