The impact of marriage on happiness in ho chi minh city of vietnam

1.1.2 Research question The main purpose of this research need to find the answer of the question if the married woman will be happier than single folks over lifetimes as well the method

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS ERASMUS UNVERSITY ROTTERDAM

HO CHI MINH CITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES

VIETNAM – THE NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

THE IMPACT OF MARRIAGE ON HAPPINESS

IN HO CHI MINH CITY OF VIETNAM

BY

TRAN PHAM BAO NGUYEN

MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2017

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES

VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

THE IMPACT OF MARRIAGE ON HAPPINESS

IN HO CHI MINH CITY OF VIETNAM

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

By

TRAN PHAM BAO NGUYEN

Academic Supervisor:

Dr TRUONG DANG THUY

HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2017

ABBREVIATIONS

GSO General Statistics Office of Vietnam

SMAM The singulate mean age at the first marriage HCMC Ho Chi Minh City

SWB Subjective well-being

WVS World Value Survey

CIV Core independent variables

CV Control variables

OLS Ordinary Least Squares

NORC National Opinion Research Center

VNP Vietnam – The Netherlands Programme

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this research need to find the answer of the question if the married woman will be happier than single folks over lifetimes as well the method of measuring happiness in practice and the impact of marriage on happiness

We desire to face a great challenge for the unsolved big problem and the results will be motivated in most decisions related to marriage, all the beliefs, opportunities, assumptions, perceptions and fears in mind happen And could hope our valuable results make many young males and females have re-considered their beliefs on marriage to lead lasting happiness and their roles and responsibilities in shaping the future society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS iii

ABSTRACT iv

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Objective and motivation 1

1.1.1 Research objective 1

1.1.2 Research question 3

1.1.3 Motivation 3

1.2 Organization of the thesis 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Happiness 6

2.1.1 The science of happiness 7

2.1.2 Empirical studies of happiness 9

2.2 Marriage 15

2.2.1 Empirical studies of marital and happiness 17

2.2.2 Method 22

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 26

3.1 Determine sample size: 26

We need 384 samples but finally we get 397 which are fine to continue 26

3.2 Data collection 26

3.3 Econometric models 28

Conceptual framework 29

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS 31

4.1 The summary statistics 31

4.1.1 Independent variables 31

4.1.1.1 Variables of general information 31

4.1.1.2 Variables of married women 35

4.1.1.3 Variables of husband 40

4.1.2 Dependent variables 44

4.2 Results 46

4.2.1 Basic model 47

4.2.2 Full model 51

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 59

5.1 Conclusion 59

5.2 Implication 59

REFERENCE 61

APPENDIX 67

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Descriptive samples

Table 2.1: Descriptive statistics by independent variables - general

Table 2.2: Descriptive statistics by independent variables – who is married Table 2.3: Descriptive statistics by independent variables – related to husband Table 2.4: Descriptive statistics by continuous variables

Table 2.5: Descriptive statistics by dependent variables

Table 3: Estimation results of the basic model

Table 4: Estimation results of the full model

in the woman was 0.6%, while the man only was 0.4%

Why the women tend to divorce or wish a separate life these days? The percentage of skilled female workers is increasing year by year from 12.3% in 20072 and the updated figure to 19.3% in 20153 Female unemployment rate is approximately 2.26%

in 20154 And monthly average income per capita is dramatically increased from 1,639,500 dong in 20055; 3,259,500 dong in 20106 and 5,695,300 dong in 20157.It can explain why women tend to make their own financial decisions these days

In addition, a glance at the past few years, the fact and the figure of marital status indicated that the singulate mean age at the first marriage (SMAM) has been increased in Vietnamese families, GSO (2015)8 SMAM in 1999 is 23.8 years and 2015 24.9 years, in which, SMAM of males were higher than 1.2, 2.6, 3.4, 3.9, 4.1 years compared with

1 GSO (2015) – Major findings: The 1/4/2015 time-point population change and family planning survey, table 2.1, page 34

2 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >> Percentage of trained employed workers by sex and by residence  2007  female

3 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >> Percentage of trained employed workers by sex and by residence  2015  female

4 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >>Unemployment and unemployment rate of labour force

at working age in 2015 by region and by sex

5 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >>Average income of employed workers in State sector by kind of economic activity >>2005

6 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >>Average income of employed workers in State sector by kind of economic activity >>2010

7 GSO, 02.Popolation and Employment >>Average income of employed workers in State sector by kind of economic activity >>2015

8 GSO (2015) – Major findings: The 1/4/2015 time-point population change and family planning survey, table 2.3, page 37

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females in 1989, 1999, 2009, 2014 and 2015, respectively The men tend to delay their marriage and getting married at later ages Their SMAM were 24.4 years in 1989 and 26.9 year in 2015

For financially independent, then the open lifestyle of Vietnam women is moving

to get individual person’s value, life satisfaction than the past They explore and define themselves how they want as norms challenge They are encouraged in active participation and habit changes of a range of elements which considered uncommon or stigmas in the past, for example together with friends or colleagues at beer clubs, pub, bar, or travelling alone, even tattoo, etc

In addition, they meet up friends frequently over growing with urgent haste of social networking The woman can make appointments or dating easily by signing in or logging with any email or any phone number, approximately less than a minute into Facebook, Twister, Skype, Instagram and many other things The women love life themselves with positive energy and thinking, so they make people around be happier by offering empathy and support to others They are willing to share deeper emotions such

as challenges and pressures in their life

Deriving from Reuters titled “Vietnam experience a “quite” sexual revolution” by McCool (2007) reported that an open sexual revolution is revealing in Vietnam, especially keen for single women and Saigon is a typically example Due to open-minded, the couple recognized the same conceptual and moves and lives together immediately or having pre-marital sex, then previous generations Online social networking created woman raise love and sex and sexual orientation directly without any shy

The other sides, but if, some women are considering to be satisfied their own life or/and the top of satisfaction is getting marriage? Or they are on pursuit of happiness and seem to be the biggest challenges in their life? Or they do not know what is perfect happiness called, just try to look for experience physical and emotional pleasure and find out the best way to avoid pain?

When asking people around, I myself recognized that the women would be the happiest when they are side by side and fit with their right man as well the way to lead a loving marriage and drive a lasting happiness Marital happiness has become the great

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achivement much more than professional accomplishment in personal life of each person While the data above implied that the man have tended to decline his marriage and the divoice rate in woman are dramatically increasing in the recent years So, is marriage considered significant accomplishment as many people put the most value on and their faith on lasting happiness has not been unfounded?

We desire to face a great challenge for the unsolved big problem and the results will be motivated in most decisions related to marriage, all the beliefs, opportunities, assumptions, perceptions and fears in mind happen And could hope our valuable results make many young males and females have re-considered their beliefs on marriage to lead lasting happiness and their roles and responsibilities in shaping the future society

1.1.2 Research question

The main purpose of this research need to find the answer of the question if the married woman will be happier than single folks over lifetimes as well the method of measuring happiness in practice and the impact of marriage on happiness in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam

1.1.3 Motivation

We conduct at least 500 surveys of women at aged 18-65 who is living in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to find out the research question by using regression techniques Our results contribute ongoing discussions which related to the role of marriage on happiness with comprehensive and critical insights Besides, if this thesis might record great achievements, we continue to explore to all woman in Vietnam And results have achieved to bring solutions for policy makers

1.2 Organization of the thesis

Our thesis includes five parts The first part, we introduce research objective and motivation, focused on the research question “if the married woman will be happier than single folks over lifetimes?” Secondly, we research the theory and empirical studies which measure happiness and happiness on marriage and their impact correlation with them Thirdly, we summarize statistics and results The next, we state outstanding findings as

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going to the finally conclusion and implication

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CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Happiness

The question was raised how to measure individual happiness which will be taken

up and a sketch of the relationship between the affirmation of individuality and happiness

The book was named “Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness” by Bavetta et al (2014) which demonstrated the theoretical foundations of happiness in economics The authors stated that happiness is measured through individual utility with two different interpretations including experience utilities and decision utilities Sometimes, the ideas

of “subjective well-being” and “happiness” have been used interchangeably

Individual utility is defined by essentially subjective and free flow of pleasure and pain Experience utilities related to or considered in term of pleasant or unpleasant and marvelous sensations to well-being Decision utilities are satisfaction as well as making decisions of consumption choices without hesitation The relationship between utilities and well-being in economics had been proposed as below: Ut =∫𝑡=01 𝑢(𝑐𝑡)𝑑𝑡, which in u utility, c the consumption and U the total utility, t presents time This function implies that total utility is the sum of utility experienced from consumption over time

Besides, the researchers revealed the different between the concept of life satisfaction and happiness Life satisfaction is influenced by socioeconomic status, while happiness is more related to apart from contingent sequence

Obtaining the valuable results, the authors have processed with a huge sample in different situations from over time and cross sections and countries in the last thirty years They open to debate on some contentious issues about the reliability and validity

of the data when applied in the empirical modules The experience utility has been measured to base on individual well-being data of self-reported valuations The data source from World Value Survey (WVS) (2009) was used for analytics

What the matter is how to construct a variable which seize both aspects of

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being of life, thus, the economist created a variable which recommended measure of subjective well-being (SWB) This combines from respondent’s interview or submission of

a survey about happiness and life satisfaction and divided by weighted of each variable

The most popular approach the people are whether or not happy, the economists frequently have asked directly such as “All things considered, how happy they are with their life as a whole these days?”, using four level of measurement and coded from low

=1 to high = 4, corresponding with very happy, rather happy, not very happy, and not at all happy, respectively This scale demonstrated how happy the people enjoy

On the other hand, whereas, life satisfaction is measured by the question

“Thinking of your life as a whole, would you consider how satisfied they are” with the range from 1 with “not at all satisfied” to 10 with very satisfied

The people evaluate the level of happiness and life satisfaction which basing on their experience in term of from low level to high level A high range of satisfaction, they maximize benefits and get high quality of life But the scale of happiness measurement is aversion; the higher level is associated with lower levels of happiness The relationship of happiness, subjective well-being and life satisfaction are significantly correlated

2.1.1 The science of happiness

According to Bronson and Merryman (2009), they have investigated that Psychologists and neuroscientists indicated the area of the human brain responsible for positive memories, feelings, motions and happiness which named the hippocampus Its important role related to form new experience events as well as training, feeding, nurturing and improving mood and happiness

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan It helps regulate learning, mood, impulsivity, sleep, sexuality and appetite Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which helps regulate the brain’s reward and pleasure centers, movements and emotional responses It is synthesized from tyrosine that found in poultry, fish, milk, bananas

Achor and Shawn (2011) stated that people should go outside at least 20 minutes

a day in good weather to boost positive mood, broadens thinking and improves working

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memory Exercise releases proteins and endorphins that make the brain feel happier Besides, they gave an interesting fact about 10% married people are happier then unmarried people

The happiest occupations focused on Clergyman, Actor, Architect, and Firefighter The most satisfied people were in Mexico and Puerto Rico and the most optimistic people were in Nigeria and Mexico In the whole world, the happiest people live in Iceland (94%), Denmark (91%), Netherlands (91%), Sweden (91%), Australia (90%) and America is the

16th happiest country in the world Happiness is maximized at 13.9oC/57oF The happiest kids in the world are Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Germany, America because they are close friends and family

Healthy people are happier 20% than average but having a child reduces happiness by 0.24% on average The two biggest factors that contribute to happiest around the world are a sense of community and frequent community celebrations in which 31% who attend a service monthly, 43% who attend church service weekly, 26% who never attend church

Eventually, Grimm et al (2007) mentioned the amount of time should actively be helping the people in community 2 hours a week, approximately 100 hours a year Additionally, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the ingredients for happiness are the most important Life Purpose, Respect, Relationship and the last Basic Biological Needs Income above $20,000 per capita yields a minimal increase in happiness and people in the highest income bracket are about 3.5% happier than average

In a study of patients with depression of ABC News with “Study: Exercise Treats Elderly Depression, only 9% of patients treat with exercise, 38% of patients’ treats with medication, and 31% of patients’ treats with medication and exercise And sleep-deprived people have a harder time remembering positive ideas, and an easier time remembering negative ideas

Bronson and Merryman (2009) explained sleep-deprived people have a harder time remembering positive ideas, and an easier time remembering negative ideas Especially, in a study of sleep-deprived college students, they remembered 81% of negative words and only 31% of positive words

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Also following Steve Herman et al (2007) indicated the happiest kids in the world

at Mexico, next Spain, Brazil, Germany and the fifth America They supposed that the most important source of a kids’ happiness is close friends and family

2.1.2 Empirical studies of happiness

2.1.2.1 Method of measuring happiness

Taking about happiness, this is an open question and it is hard to explain and compare who is happier than another because there is no good definition which depends

on different situations as well as who are using the word for, for example, with the same story, someone said that what an unfortunate, and others reckon that makes them be happier To measure happiness as well as to answer the question what happiness it is, almost authors are using scale ladder as the main measurement of happiness

Graham and Chattopadhyay (2012) defined happiness of respondent’s life now and five years later compared to the happiest period on a 0-10 scale, 0 being the worst and 10 being the happiest

Additionally, Mencarini and Sironi (2010) indicated the relationship between happiness, housework and gender inequality in Europe The dependent variable used to measure happiness though the question if “Taking all things together, how happy would say you are?” The answer was suggested on an ordinal scale ladder, ranging from 0 being extremely unhappy and 10 being extremely happy Follow the surveys, almost of respondents tend to answer positively and saying they are happy in which more than half

of the target people chosen values of 7 or higher, and reaching a skewed direction of happiness

Lee and Ono (2012), Baranowska-Rataj et al (2014), Vanassche et al (2013), Dursun and Cesur (2016) and following the source of World Value Survey surveyed the happiness though the question “How happy they are in their life generally” by a four-point ladder scale: “very happy – quite happy – somewhat happy – not at all happy” or

“completely happy―very happy―fairly happy―neither happy nor unhappy―fairly unhappy―very unhappy―completely unhappy”, or or 5 points scale with 5 being “very happy,” 4 happy,” 3 “neither happy, nor unhappy,” 2 “unhappy,” 1 “very unhappy But,

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Mencarini and Sironi (2010) used the answer on ranging from 0 for extremely unhappy to

10 for extremely happy

Besides, Rutgers et al (2014), Mencarini and Sironi (2010) and Stokes and Recascino (2003) demonstrated the ways they felt in their life with the same question “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your family life?’’ but there are different scale ladders seven levels for completely satisfied―very satisfied―fairly satisfied―neither satisfied nor unsatisfied―fairly unsatisfied―very unsatisfied―completely unsatisfied and another categories range are defined from 0 being not at all to 6 being very or 1 for very dissatisfied, 5 for very satisfied

Another paper of Lee and Ono (2010) still found out the coordination between specialization and the happiness in marriage between two developed countries U.S.–Japan with the big data from the General Social Survey which operated and administered

in the U.S and Japan

Furdyna et al (2008) investigated happiness of married and cohabiting individuals

“Taking all things together, how would describe your marriage Would you say your marriage is …” with the ranging from 1 to 4 being very happy - a little happier than average - just about average - or not too happy or from 1 to 3 being not too happy - 3 being very happy or from 1 to 5 being extremely unhappy - extremely happy After that, the second question is “Love and affection you get from your spouse and the

“understanding you receive from your spouse” with 7-point ladder from 1 “unhappy” to 7

“very happy” And the last question is “About how often did you and your wife spend time alone with each other, talking, or sharing an activity” is based on the ranging from 1

“never” to 6 “almost every day.” (Lee and Ono, 2008; Schoen et al., 2002; Kaufman and Taniguchi, 2006 and Wilcox and Nock 2006)

Mentioned about happiness in general, Ifcher and Zarghamee (2014) and Wolfers (2009) suggested ‘‘Taken all together, how would you say things are these days - would you say that you are …” with 3 point-scale ladder very happy - pretty happy/fairly - or not too happy

Or Lee and Ono (2012) and Treas et al (2011), Carbonell and Paul Frijter (2004) proposed ‘‘If you were to consider your life in general, how happy or unhappy would you

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say you are, on the whole?”, scale ladder from 1 being completely unhappy to 7 being completely happy or using the 10 point-scale from 1 being totally unhappy, and 10 being totally happy

Finally, reference the measurement of happiness of The Office for National Statistics published “How happy are you right now” with respondents’ answer as follows Content – Satisfied – Anxious Basing on a 10-point scale of Integrated Household Survey (IHS) propounded “How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?” or “How happy did you feel yesterday?” or “How anxious did you feel yesterday?” or “To what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?” Next, the World Values Survey challenged “How happy do you feel at the present moment” or “How well do you feel your life is going,” with 3 level responses very happy - moderately unhappy – neutral 2.1.2.2 Factors affecting happiness

In analyzing the determinants of happiness, researchers found out many factors which affected to that concept directly Firstly, Rataj et al (2014) investigated 5 groups of factors such as child-partnership and age, education, satisfaction with health, satisfaction with income, labor market situation of the mother and the partner on happiness

Next, Graham and Chattopadhyay (2012) indicated 6 implements as independent variables including age, sex, marital status, employment, geography, health In which, each factor was classified such as age and its square term, sex for male or female, and marital status for single, married, separated, divorced, or widowed; employment basing

on household income; geography for urban or rural; health for satisfaction with freedom

Additionally, Rutgers et al (2014) mentioned independent variables such as marital quality, with control variables relate to age The one more a research of Gash et

al (2012) suggested hours of work of part-time job and control variables like age, education, along with important life events like having a children or anniversary of marriage, changes in health, and upgrading or downgrading job The authors collected in matrix X of a set of control variables A dummy variable indicated whether the people have switched to a part-time position and another switched to a full-time position

And Ifcher and Zarghamee (2013) explored the happiness by controlling for single

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mothers’ demographic characteristics including gender, age, race, native born, number of children, marital status (single vs not single), educational attainment, health, family income, and region Lee and Ono (2010) found out the relation between specialization and the happiness in marriage between U.S.–Japan comparisons Data from the General Social Survey administered in the U.S and Japan Variables include the following as education coded as years of schooling completed, employment status of respondent and employment status of spouse 0 being not working, 1 being working)

Lee and Ono (2012) demonstrated independent variables such as country, marital status, societal gender beliefs (SGB) SGB indicated the relationship of gender beliefs in a country and gender (female), and the living in a country with traditional expectations Regarding gender roles in the family and being a cohabiter, SGB indicated the gender roles in the family and not being married or cohabiting, gender and parenthood status, employment, and income, as well as marital status

Liang et al (2014) discussed 6 categories variables The number one was personal details such as occupation, age, and education attainment The number two was economic situation including living condition, and health care conditions The number three was social relations including relationship with in-laws, children, husband and neighbors The number four was local government including government policies, government efficiency

The number five was physical and psychological status including condition of work, health status, optimistic personality, and loneliness The number six was financial burdens with the amount of dependent children and elderly people Among categories 2,

3, 4, 5, the authors showed 13 questions to be answered using scale ladder, whereas a 1 being ‘‘strongly disagree’’, a 2 being ‘‘Disagree’’, a 3 being ‘‘Neutral’’, a 4 being ‘‘Agree’’ and a 5 being ‘‘strongly agreed’’

For education attainment, a 1 was assigned with ‘‘primary school and below’’, 2 for ‘‘junior middle school’’, 3 for ‘‘high school (vocational school)’’, 4 for ‘‘junior college’’ and 5 for ‘‘bachelor’s degree and above’’ For occupation, ‘‘farming’’ added with a 0 and a

1 with ‘‘non-farming’’, the maximum total score of 100 After surveying, if the scores below and equal 39 is represented unhappy index, basic happiness from 40–59, range of 60–79 for happy and the last, 80–100 for very happy

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Mencarini and Sironi (2010) measured happiness by income or other monetary such as consumption expenditure, women’s demographic and socioeconomic characteristics The authors also used the dummy variable if 1 indicating woman is engaged and a share of household labor more than 75 percent

Treas et al (2011) described the relationship of happiness with family income and home environment and work status onside The authors indicated four dummy variables such as full-time worker, part-time worker, home- maker, and others unemployment, for example student, unemployed, disabled, others And, control variables included age, age-squared, number of children and education, gender attitude liberalism and the frequency

of attendance at religious services

Besides, there is the six-point scale ladder of educational qualifications ranges from 0 for no formal qualifications to 5 for university degree completed Dummy variables of work status categories included homemakers, part-time workers, and others unemployment but full-time workers were the omitted reference category Variables of family income, husband's household task-sharing, perceived fairness of the division of housework, family stress and couple conflict over housework were the mediating variables

Furthermore, Swami et al (2015) also measured happiness basing on weight such

as body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and subjective happiness, and demographic data such as education, age, and body mass index

Therewith, following the research of Vanassche et al, (2013), they introduced core independent variables (CIV) including marital status, the number of young and older children Control variables (CV) included age, education, employment status CIV at the national level were the level of importance marriage, appreciation of parenthood, disapproval of alternative family types CV at the national level was Gross Domestic Product Per Capita

Stokes and Recascino (2003) showed the affected factors to happiness, the authors introduced some scale ladders The first ones, Body Esteem Scale indicated the level of satisfaction on a 5-point range 1 for very dissatisfied, and 5 for very satisfied And the second ones, Eating Attitudes Test was a 6-point scale ladder including 1 being never,

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2 being rarely, 3 being sometimes, 4 being often, 5 being very often, 6 being always

The third ones, Life Satisfaction presented a 5-point response scale 1 for strongly disagree, and 5 for strongly agree And the last ones, Demographics of participants asked

to check rate at level of religiosity/spirituality on a 9-point scale ladder such as 1 for not

at all, 9 for very

2.1.2.3 Estimation

Leading to the good results, each author used different method each Firstly, Rataj

et al (2014) considered to solve the impacts of single motherhood on happiness by using mixed-method approach Semi-structured face-to-face interviews identified the positive and the negative factors of lone motherhood, and to re-build women’s perceptions in the first stage The second stage, the authors estimated though ordered probit model, fixed-effects and random-effects model, using panel data including all single mothers, the divorced and widowed

Next, Gash et al (2012) used an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and random effects

to measure the effect of a change in working hours on the changes in life satisfaction focusing on non-employed women and when they enter the labour market as well as using fixed effects to find out significant differences between women having full-time or part-time jobs

Additionally, Furdyna et al (2008) investigated the relationship between husband income ratio and marital happiness by OLS method The research of John Ifcher, Homa Zarghamee (2013) estimated using an ordered probit; robust standard errors

wife-to-The next, Lee and Ono (2010) were used ordered logits in all regressions and separately for men and women, heteroscedasticity The author estimated models separately for men and women, controlling for age, age squared and survey year The survey year dummies are controlled by fixed effects

And Lee and Ono (2012) recommended pooled OLS for all estimations Therewith, Mencarini and Sironi (2010) demonstrated a series of ordered probit regressions with a multi-level structure Treas et al (2011) were used random effect models and OLS for all regressions Vanassche et al (2013) estimated a linear mixed model and multilevel

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ordered probit models and multinomial probit models Stokes and Recascino (2003) estimated a linear multiple regression for all methods The the last ones, Wilcox and Nock (2006) picked a series of ordinary least square (OLS) for all regression models

2.2 Marriage

Becker (1974) introduced marital benefits such as time, goods, and inputs in household production which compared to single life The author also indicated the positive matching between men and women focused on IQ index, education, attractiveness, height, race, skin color, religion, family origin, etc…The researcher valuated the outputs of household and the division between wife and husband One again, the constitutor also analyzed the reason why lead the men and the women delay in marriage, concept to trial marriage, or divorce

The men and the women decided to get marriage if and only if they are increased their utilities Utilities was mentioned not only goods, services purchased, but also commodities produced by each member in household Commodities were listed such as the quality of meals, conversations, quantity of children; respect each other, relaxation and entertainment, love, sympathy, partner, and health

To maximize utilities of each member in household, mean, they try to maximize what they are received Production function is Z = f(x1,…xm; t1 tk; E), where xi are the different kinds of goods and services; tj are the time inputs of each members in household and E is environmental variable The economist examined the gain from marriage such as balanced costs including legal fees and “love” fees; beneficial inputs including time and market goods Besides, it depends on beauty, education, intelligence and other opportunities in market

To distinguish married household and single household is of children Everything can purchase except own children Generally, both the men and the women wish have their own children and take care of them and love comes from physical and emotional between each other The children and all love are imperfect substitution because a single side cannot produce them The author’s explanation of marital benefits concentrates on complementarity as main resources which gain from marriage between the men and the women It is expressed by Cobb-Douglas form Simultaneously, he re-affirmed the

Besides, some factors related to choose the right partner including race, religion, age, family background, education, annual income, and characteristic features such as height, weight, skin color, passiveness and aggressiveness, etc But the most important thing, people tried to find the way to maximize utility, and focusing on household commodity inputs and outputs

Searching the appropriate “candidate”, the right person has the valuable expectation no greater the cost of time and other inputs called “love cost” and related to education, intelligence, income, family background, lifestyle, ambition, release stress and pressure, strategy of partner’s life The duration of searching depends on definition of expected value and marriage comes when the people are lucky in their search Secondly, the data is collected and analyzed to predict their partner; the right person will appear when the perfect information has Then, they make decisions stay in the marital home as well as about marriage: should they divorce or separate or re-marry after that

Most of countries in the world, especially, Vietnam considered marriage as a must-fulfilled obligation of children to their parents and social in generally, instead, it was symbolized by the real love of the couples, the voluntary in nature and a strong feeling of wanting together In such an identification and prejudice, marital quality and stability had been seriously related to marital satisfaction and conversely

Goals for marriages affected daily activities which mentioned behaviors and being But after reviewing human goals and classification them in details, among that important goals referring to social relationships were judged at the most Follow the theory of marital satisfaction, the researchers’ defined “marital satisfaction” that mean the aspects of people global subjective of their marital quality

well-Relating to above statement, the economists try to focus on quality of marriage but not their stability Basing on observing, statistics data analysis, and the authors

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pronounced the main reason for divorce because of the low quality of marriage In contrast with that reasoning, they declaimed to tolerate in the marriages leading to having the high quality of marriages

Rusbult et al (1998) recommended that the scales of satisfaction, quality, and commitment to the current relationship completely depended on the contribution of investment size, and that was the key factor leading to marital stability (Le and Agnew, 2003) Contemporary, Stanley and Markman (1992) declared the difference of two concepts of constraint commitment and dedication commitment

Additionally, as mentioned above, marital satisfaction was explored by the current review of people’s global evaluation instead of focusing on specification of marital domains Thus, the indicator of marital quality understood through the people’s global evaluation which being widely available in research fields

2.2.1 Empirical studies of marital and happiness

Marriage (and remarriage) was constituted from a long-term relationship with a strongly commitment relating to mutually beneficial exchange such as love, gratitude, recognition, security, in particular financial benefits These benefits have been investigated in psychology, epidemiology, and sociology fields by researchers who compared to single people Obviously, Burman and Margolin (1992) and Ross (1990) suggested the marriage has improved physical and psychological health conditions, for example less substance abuse and less depression Besides, Waite and Gallagher (2000) supplied statements basing on income, children’s achievements, sexual satisfaction, and mortality which benefited from marriage

Firstly, Glenn (1975) give support to a statement from data of U.S national surveys from the 1972-1974 stated that the married persons were happiness than unmarried persons, windowed, separated, divorced, especially, among married couple, females than males Besides, the author also rejected the arguments that the husband had been many benefits than his wife from their marriage

The surveys were performed by National Opinion Research Center (NORC) with the generally question on global happiness “Taking things all together, how would you say

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things are these days – Three scale of measurement were very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” and the question related to marriage on happiness “Taking things all together, how would you describe your marriage? Very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy were the level to identify how married persons on happiness

The researcher found out 36% saying “very happy” for married, while 19.7% for windowed, 18.7% for divorced or separated, 19.7% for never married and compared with data in 1972-1974 46.2% for married, 25.9% for windowed, 17.2% divorced or separated, 24.7% for never married Additionally, older never married with the percentage of answering “very happy” had lower than the younger ones

Specially, there were a little different in percentage “very happy” of windowed, divorced or never married on happiness between males and females, namely: for widowed group with 16.3% males for very happy but females having 20.3%; divorced or separated group with 17.3% very happy for males but females with 29% of very happy; and the last group of never married with very happy in which 16.3% males and 21.5% females Eventually, the data dramatically supported the statement of marriage on happiness for both males and females

In 1988, the author combined with Weaver (1988) to re-state that the positive relationship between marriages on happiness through 1972 to 1988 basing on U.S national survey data, but an increase happiness of never-married males and a decrease happiness of married females

Gove et al (1990) proved lower rates of mental illness of married couples than the never-married, divorced/separated, and widowed and tends to be stronger for males than for females in U.S The data also indicated the positive relationship between the psychological well-being of married and un-married

The scale at age 25-33 years, the rate of treatment to Public Mental Hospitals was for males and divided by married, never-married, windowed, divorced, divorced/separated with 100, 1100, not defined, 1392, respectively Similarly, it was for females 100, 484, 499, 513 And another the range of 35-44 years, for males were 100,

902, 1001, 1097 and for women were 100, 1001, 304, 852 With the level of 45-54 years, for males were 100, 1191, 225, and 1930 and for females were 100, 678, 435, and 680

Again, with un-married males had been an increasing positive impact on happiness, but a decreasing effect of marital happiness for married man The authors also mentioned that the married women had been a decreasing on happiness and following as

a result in the regression marriage on happiness, were not significant

Surprisely, the highest level the impacts of never-married women on happiness to reduce the relative matital status with happiness The gap of happiness between the married and never married males was trivial metter Althought, the researcher indicated the higher happiness scales of un-married but not statistically significant for younger males at aged 25-39 years

Interestingly, situation of female was a litte bit heterrogeneous The authors were not found out the differce of changing of marriage on happiness but three things were quite clear happened over time used survey: the un-married were happier; but the married were not the gap of marital women and single declined

Stack and Eshleman (1991) used data of 17 countries from national surveys, available on 18,000 adults and collected by an international association of social scientists, named The World Values Study Group and proved that the impact of marriage

on happiness holds in 16 among 17 countries with the quite same results Spouses would

be happier 3.4 times than cohabitation, and equally between males and females The authors explained two reasons of marriage on happiness: financial satisfaction, healthy improvement Being married and being happy was dramatically consistent over countries

Happiness is measured by well-known single item “Taking all things together,

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would you say are you 0 of not at all happy, 1 of not very happy, 2 of quite happy, 3 of

very happy?" Status of marriage were measured by a series of binary variables such as

married (0.1); cohabitation (0.1), divorced (0.1) and windowed (0.1) And economic being is measured by the scales with 10 points of financial satisfaction 1=highly dissatisfied to 10 = highly satisfied

well-Heretofore researches stated that the relationship between marital happiness with duration happiness followed by U-shape, mean, the first time of marriage with marital happiness was positive, decline in the middle of marital duration, but increase on the last life-cycle of marriage

On the contrary, VanLaningham et al (2001) doubted on the widely results, they pronounced that marital happiness was decreased on the first stage and still gone down

in the middle, a little bit fat in the later years The data was used from the Marital Instability over the Life Course study in U.S over 17 years and interviewed by telephone

in 1980, 1983, 1988, 1992 and 1997, sample of under aged 55 years

The authors measured marriage on happiness through people’s feelings with (1) understanding between spouse, (2) love and affection (3) consistency of many things, (4) sexual relationship (5) responsibilities in their house, (6) who as to do things with, (7) faithfulness each other’s with ranges from 1 = very happy to 3 = not too happy

Respondents were answered about marriage on happiness with (1) “Taking all things together, how would you describe your marriage? Would you say that your marriage is 1 = very happy, 2 = pretty happy, 3 = not too happy”, (2) “Compared to other marriages you know about, do you think your marriage is better than most, about the same as most, or not as good as most”, (3) “Comparing your marriage to three years ago,

is your marriage getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?” And the final question was raised about the love for their spouse with 5 scales from 1 = extremely strong to 5 = not strong at all

Marital duration was measured by the number of years of the interviewers who were married In duration from 0 to 38 years, average 12.5 years on marriage, a standard deviation of 9.13; and range from 0 to 54 years, average 19.31 years, standard deviation

of 10.8 Control variables included such as gender, race, and education

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Pooled time-series analysis with fixed-effects model, the authors added some variables which might change in the real time and affect to marriage on happiness including family income, own home, ages, the number of children, and retirement

Stack and Eshleman (1998); Coombs (1991) and Myers (1999); Diener (2000) demonstrated the effect of marital quality on people’s happiness, the increasing interest

of marital quality with higher happiness levels That pallarel, the people who get married were reported greater subjective well-being than who never married or divorced, separated, widowed They also found that the spouses with small differences in education would be happier than the large ones

Secondly, Dush and Amato (2005) stated that couples had been standard deviation above the mean of happiness of marriages which had remarkably higher subjective well-being than who get below the mean

Additionally, Proulx et al (2007) declared the positive relationship between marital quality and psychological well-being over time, which was conducted on 93 cases The more satisfaction of marital quality was the higher subjective well-being

Eventually, Wilcox and Nock (2006) proved the relationship of women’s marital happiness and women’s satisfaction with the love, understanding, and affection from their husbands, as well as the intimate interaction with their wives The authors relied on eight variables including husbands’ and wives’ gender egalitarianism, two dummy variables being wives working fulltime and part-time, equality in breadwinning and household labor

Thirdly, Zimmermann and Easterlin (2015) found out the positive affect of marriage, and negative effect of divorce and cohabitation on life satisfaction In the first year of marriage called “honeymoon period” but facing problem after one (adaptation) and two years (reaction), they were significant and positive effect on marriage And from the following years, the authors examine no statistically significant for this group The results also are not correlated to cohabitation group because basing on being statistic, 70 percent of first marriage is cohabitant in the years pre-wedding The marriage sample is selected from younger, better educated, more religious, to be employed and healthier

In 2015, Kaufman and Taniguchi were continuously refresh how effect marriage

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on happiness as well as pre-marriage attitude in United Stated and Japan The results prevail positive relationship between married on happiness are both of countries, but, divorced, widowed in U.S and never married especially for holding pre-marriage attitudes

in Japan are negative effect Additionally, they also showed some factors linked to happiness: young children being happier than without them in U.S but contrary to Japan, young children are less happy than not very happy; range of children from 13-17 years have on effect on happiness but 6-12 years reduce to chance of very happy in Japanese women Income is still positive affected on life satisfaction Fulltime and part-time are negatively associated with Japanese women’s happiness but no effect to Japanese men’s happiness and no statistically significant of American man and woman’s happiness Other control variables such as age has a negative effect but age2 has positive relationship in Japan but there is no any affect in U.S.; health has a positive relationship on happiness for both countries; religion is a positive affect to happiness in Japan but a negative effect to men’s happiness

Blanchflower and Oswald (2004) considered income, frequency of sex to link happiness and having a positive effect The people who get married have more sex than widowed or separated, divorced, single The maximum frequency of sex during a year is approximately 1 Women are the higher education, having the fewer number of sex with partner

Carr et al (2014) demonstrated the correlation to marital quality with life satisfaction generally as well as experienced well-being among couples They found out significant and positive relationship each other’s

2.2.2 Method

Kamp et al (2008) used of the Study of Marital Instability with survey of 1998, they found out the three level of happiness of marriage: low, middle and high which associated with life happiness and various control variables by using fixed effects regression with time series

They used five questions to measure the level of happiness with marriage (1) the understanding between wife and husband, (2) expressed though love, (3) sexual relationship, (4) to do things together, and (5) faithfulness in marriage The scales of

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measurement were from 0 to 2 with not too happy, pretty happy, and very happy The number (6) was marital global evaluation with scales from very happy, pretty happy, to not too happy And the final (7) was the strong feelings of love which coded with 0 of not too strong/not strong at all, 1 of pretty strong, and 2 of extremely strong/very strong

Besides, Wright et al (2007) pointed out education factor and young adults relating to maintain successful relationship between wife and husband at most issues of their life The researchers studied the two group of people including the first group of undergraduate students (n = 23 with mean age 19.9 years) and the second group of professional educators (master’s level (n = 18 with mean age 32.2 years) from different industries, in which, 83.3% from social workers, researchers/professors family and or psychotherapists (16.7%) An average of 1.5 years was the first group, but the second group was 3.6 years

Additionally, they used Q-sort methodology to define marital stability and marital adjustment It was a set of behaviors and/or qualities leading to satisfactory/unsatisfactory and/or healthy/unhealthy in their marriage The scales divided into least like/extremely of a healthy/satisfactory for 4 levels; not like a satisfactory/healthy marriage at all for 5 levels, apart/a little not like a satisfactory/healthy marriage for 5 levels; very little like a satisfactory/healthy marriage for 6 levels, indifferent/neutral for a satisfactory/healthy marriage with 8 levels, very little like a satisfactory/healthy marriage with 6 levels, somewhat or a little like a satisfactory/healthy marriage with 5 levels, like a satisfactory/healthy marriage with 5 levels, and most like/exceptionally of a satisfactory/healthy marriage with 4 levels Q-sort will be attached for reference

Continuously, Gill et al (1999) pronounced the association between communication of wife and husband leading to marital satisfaction 30 couples engaged were chosen to discuss about problems in their marriage Positive deportment by both resulted wives’ marital satisfaction and adversely But there were no variables to know how husbands’ satisfaction The authors used the two systems of observational methods

Zimmermann and Easterlin (2015) measured life satisfaction “how satisfied are you with your life all things considered?” from 0 of completely dissatisfied and 10 of

Blanchflower and Oswald (2004) used data of 16,000 adults in U.S Sex of frequency is divided once or twice a year, once a month, 2-3 times a month, weekly, 2-3 times a week, >= 4 times a week and single sexual partner And happiness is measured by question “taken all together, how would you say things are there days – would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy” Besides, some factors are related age, age2, working status, marital status They estimated by OLS and basing on pooled cross-section equations

Basing on data of 18,000 individuals about 5,000 families in U.S., Carr et al (2014)

is defined dependent variable by question “Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your life these days” from 0 = not at all to 6 = very Independent variables of marital quality are measured “how much you can open up to your spouse if you need talk about your worries?” ”whether your partner appreciates you”, etc Control variables analyses happiness on daily activities as marital duration Daily activities are described: (1) self-maintenance, (2) eating, (3) working for pay, (4) shopping for food, (5) shopping for other goods, (6) preparing food, (7) doing household chores, (8) doing household maintenance, (9) managing finances, (10) caring for others, (11) socializing, (12) watching TV/movies, (13) doing other non-active leisure activities, (14) doing active leisure activities, (15) doing organizational activities, (16) using the computer, (17) traveling

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CHAPTER 3:

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Determine sample size:

Smith (2013) introduced the way to determine sample size basing on confidence interval, confidence level, and standard of deviation and population size

𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 = 𝑍(𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑙)2∗ 𝑆𝑡𝑑𝐷𝑒𝑣 ∗ 1 − 𝑆𝑡𝑑𝐷𝑒𝑣

(𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟)2Our data with the confidence interval (also called margin of error) is 5% And the confidence level is 95% Standard of deviation is 50% determines the sample size needed for a given level of accuracy

𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 = 1.962∗ 0.5 ∗1 − 0.5

0.052 = 384.16

We need 384 samples but finally we get 397 which are fine to continue

3.2 Data collection

We conducted 501 surveys of woman at aged 18-65 who living in HCMC, in which

57 samples from Google docs, 340 paper surveys, and 101 dis-function samples

Our questionnaire consists of three sections The firstly, this section is designed to get some general information such as: gender, geography, age, education, working status, occupation, social position, income, religion, health, and marital status The secondly, for those who get married with questions mention including: sex frequency, sex-out-marriage, pre-marriage attitude, happiness of current marriage compared with perceived happiness of before and after marriage, happiness of current marriage compared with expectations prior to the marriage, the average difference in life satisfaction in the first year of marriage (reaction), the average difference in life satisfaction from one's baseline value in the second year after marriage and all subsequent years of marriage (adaptation), quantity of children range of children, compared daily activities between wife and husband on weekday and weekend, compared works with husband and doing by yourself or with another, compared works each other’s at home and other places not

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home, activities each other within 30 days from survey day, marital duration And lastly, the question related to husband: age, education, working status, occupation, social position, income, health

Table 1: Descriptive samples

Google Docs: friends from Facebook, VNP-22, colleagues

Small traders at Ben Thanh Market, along Le Loi Street 27

Women at Ton That Thuyet area, District 4, HCMC 73

Women Union Dist Binh Thanh, Ba Chieu Market 38

Elder sister from Unicare Co Ltd., and Viettes 45

Similarly, procedure is set up to measure the effect of marital quality on happiness The quality of marriage scale is indicated by the question “Taking all things

28

together, how would you describe your marriage? Would you say that your marriage is 1

= very happy, 2 = pretty happy, 3 = not too happy”, (code 3) “Compared to other marriages you know about, do you think your marriage is better than most, about the same as most, or not as good as most” (code 4)

Detailed questionnaire updated in appendix

𝐻𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 = 𝑎𝑜 + 𝑎1𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 + 𝑎2𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 + 𝑎3𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 + 𝑎4𝑜𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

+ 𝑎5𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 + 𝑎6𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 + 𝑎7𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 + 𝑎8ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ + 𝑎9𝑎𝑔𝑒 + 𝑎10 𝑎𝑔𝑒 2 + 𝑎11𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛+ 𝑎12𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 + 𝑎13𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑓𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑔𝑒+ 𝑎14𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑛𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑜𝑓𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛+ 𝑎15𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑓𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛+ 𝑎16𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑜𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟

+ 𝑎17ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠𝑒𝑑𝑢 + 𝑎18𝑎𝑔𝑒ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑+ 𝑎19𝑎𝑔𝑒2ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑+ 𝑎20ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠+ 𝑎21ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛+ 𝑎22ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛+ 𝑎23ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒+ 𝑎24ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 ′ 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ

Ordered Probit regression, we can test whether a1 is different from zero If a1 is equal

to zero, then married and unmarried woman are not different in terms of happiness If, and suppose that we define marital status as a dummy 1= married and 0 = unmarried, then a1 >0 means married women is happier Else a1 < 0, unmarried women is happier

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Conceptual framework

30

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RESEARCH RESULTS 4.1 The summary statistics

4.1.1 Independent variables

30 independent variables are assembled into 3 groups of general information, married women and some questions are only husband

4.1.1.1 Variables of general information

Our 397 observations are women and live in Ho Chi Minh City, their average age is 30.43 years, mentioned in table 2.4 (Descriptive statistics by continuous variables) in which the minimum is 18 years and the maximum is 65 years And in table 2.1 (Descriptive statistics by independent variables - general), education are accumulated 4 levels: junior middle school and below with 89 people, accounting for 22.42%; vocational school 79 (19.90%); junior college 102 (25.69%) and the bachelor’s degree and PhD 127 (31.99%)

Fulltime job is reported by 218 people, accounting for 54.91% of sample total, a rest of collected data is part-time job of 179 people (45.09%) Occupation is categorized

as follows: Unemployment/Farming 69 people (18.38%); Small Trader 105 (25.45%); Private Office Workers 129 people (32.49%); State Employees 27 people (6.8%) and Private Middle Level Management, State-Level Middle Management, Middle Managers with foreign elements, Private Sector Senior, Management, Senior State Management, Senior Management with foreign elements, Business Owner 67 people (16.88%)

Their social position is mainly middle and lower level, accounting for 364 people (91.69%), remaining is top and upper level 33 people (8.31%) The percentage of average income (per month) of the group of people having vnd 7.5 mil is assembled majority, 120 people (30.23%) The second is level of vnd 12.5 mil, 86 people (21.66%) The following is vnd 17.5 mil with 56 people (14.11%) 49 people (12.34%) belongs a group of vnd 2.5 mil And the last, we have 22 people (5.54%) of vnd 22.5 mil, 26 people (6.55%) of vnd 27.5