Overview

• Researchers tracked 1,103 people who moved from living alone into cohabitation using the SOEP and Understanding Society (UKHLS) longitudinal surveys.
• Life satisfaction increased at the start of the partnership and stayed higher for at least two years, challenging simple set‑point assumptions.
• The improvement was similar across age, gender, income and education groups, according to the study authors.
• An added boost from marriage appeared only in older data around 1993, pointing to shifts in the social meaning of commitment.
• The peer‑reviewed study by teams at Bielefeld, Greifswald and Warwick appears in the Journal of Personality, with some coverage noting 27,459 total respondents across the broader surveys.