Trouble and strife
Q: Did you see that married people only pretend to be happier than single people?
A: Where’s that?
Q: Newshub. Or the USA, depending on what you’re asking.
A: Yeah nah
Q: “Married people are happier than other population subgroups, but only when their spouse is in the room when they’re asked how happy they are. When the spouse is not present: f**king miserable,” Dolan said while speaking at a book festival in Wales.
A: I’m not sure we’re allowed to say “f**king” on StatsChat.
Q: But the survey data are right?
A: Up to a point
Q: That means no, doesn’t it?
A: The survey data are right, but the question wasn’t anything like what he thought
Q: How do you get a simple question about happiness wrong?
A: The question about the spouse being in the room
Q: Ok, how do you get that wrong?
A: The question was about marital status and living arrangements, and it wasn’t about a particular point in time when happiness was being measured (or even from the same survey). The possible values included “Never Married”, “Married – Spouse Present”, “Married -Spouse Absent”, “Divorced”, “Separated”.
Q: Wait, so married people are actually f**king miserable if they’re not living with their spouse? A long-distance relationship, or going through a bad patch or something?
A: Yes, only “f**king miserable” is a bit of an exaggeration. They’re still happier than divorced or never married people.
Q: Well, that’s f**king unsatisfactory
A: Indeed. After the problem was pointed out to him, Professor Dolan has withdrawn that part of his claim
Q: But not Newshub
A: No.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »