Do You Really Need a Partner to Be Happy?

Do we need a relationship to be happy?

Each year on Valentine’s Day, newspapers and magazines highlight people’s love lives and their relationship stories. Some of us—whether in a relationship or single—might then ask ourselves if we really need a partner to be happy.

Overall, relationship science literature suggests that romantic relationships significantly contribute to people’s well-being and health (e.g., Robles et al., 2014). But individuals might differ in how much they think romantic relationships are important for their own happiness.

What is your personal answer? Do you need a partner to be happy? Interestingly, the answer to this question might vary across generations.

What’s So Special About Millennials?

Each birth cohort has been socialized in different contexts and has experienced different living conditions, so birth cohorts often differ in the values and living preferences they have. Adolescents from “Generation Y” (colloquially known as “millennials”) were born between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. Compared to previous generations, millennials tend to be more individualistic and might reflect more critically on the social and romantic structures in which their parents and grandparents lived. This is also shown in their preference for more individualistic relationship formats, where marriage and shared households are options but no longer a must-have. How do these changes in living arrangements affect their personal needs? How important is it for them to be in a relationship?

The Hierarchy of Needs

If we think of needs, one classical need theory comes into mind: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1954). Maslow argued that people have different categories of needs, which are hierarchically ordered. Beginning with needs of safety and surviving, to needs of belonging and love, to needs of esteem, the final category is needs of self-fulfillment and personal development.

If a category of needs is fulfilled, one can move to the next category of needs, successively progressing. For instance, consider Maja, who recently moved to a new city and is concerned about belonging to this new place. She will likely not consider self-fulfillment an important need as long as she does not feel socially connected and accepted. Leo, conversely, who feels safe, socially connected, and loved, now strives for self-fulfillment and personal development. Hence, the needs reflect the conditions and the context a person is living in.

Needs of Millennials

The last category of Maslow’s need hierarchy—the need for personal development—seems to be particularly important for millennials and for romantic relationships nowadays (Finkel et al., 2014). This is expressed in the ways young adults initiate, develop, and potentially terminate their romantic relationships: They wish to have room for their own development, which is why they often prefer living in separated households or may dissolve relationships sooner if they have the impression that they are no longer allowed the space they need.

A recent study from Scheling and Richter (2021) investigated whether these needs are also reflected in the thoughts that young adults have about relationships. The researchers’ key question was whether millennials, compared to adolescents of previous generations, differ in the importance that they ascribe to romantic relationships as being essential for their personal happiness.

What Do Millennials Think: Are Romantic Relationships Important for Happiness?

To answer their research question, the researchers used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which started in 1984. At the beginning of the study, 17-year old adolescents provided an answer to the following question: “Do you believe that one needs a partner to be truly happy, or do you believe that one can be equally happy or happier alone?“

Over time, a total of 4,540 adolescents from different cohorts provided an answer to this question, which enabled the researchers to compare the answers of adolescents from different birth cohorts. What did they find?

Interestingly, in 2000, almost 78 percent of the adolescents thought that they needed a partner to be happy, whereas this number decreased to 48 percent in 2015. Hence, the later the adolescents were born, the less they were likely to affirm that a partner was important for their personal happiness. Additional predictors for saying that a partner is less important for happiness were: being female, having a lower level of education, and having parents who are separated.

What to Take From the Findings

Being in a fulfilling romantic relationship can be an important ingredient for a happy, fulfilling life. At the same time, in recent generations, relationship trajectories and living formats have become more diversified, and being in a relationship is no longer a necessary condition for happiness—at least among people from Generation Y. The same might be true for people at other stages of their life course. For some, being in a relationship is more important, while it is less important for others.

From time to time, we might ask ourselves which romantic living conditions we need to be happy and to act according to these preferences—not only on Valentine’s Day.