Sebastian Mader and Axel Franzen used three major European surveys (the German Socio-Economic Panel, the Swiss Household Panel and the British Household Longitudinal Study) to estimate how much happiness changes when people have more friends.
First, the good news is that people in all three countries have an average of four to five close friends, and this number has remained remarkably stable over the past twenty years. This is in contrast to the United States, where More and more people indicate that they have fewer friends and spend less time with friends.
But when it comes to the influence of friends on happiness, the research showed that the positive impact of doubling the number of close friends is measurable but relatively small. The graph below shows how much happiness changes on average across the three countries when people double the number of close friends they have. Improving subjective perception of health is by far the biggest driver for greater happiness, followed by being in a relationship (at least as long as you’re not in a relationship in Britain) and then having a job.
Having a job increases happiness about twice as much as having twice as many close friends, and generally as much as being in a relationship. Oh, and much more than having children. As has so often been shown in happiness research, Children don’t make you happy.
Change in happiness due to different life events
Source: Mader and Franzen (2025)
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