Happiness of the middle-aged workers in Thailand: Does marital status matter?

This study is inspired by a query challenging whether marriage or marital status does matter to affect one’s happiness in the contexts of Thai society. It employs a set of secondary data from the “1st round Happiness Survey among Thai Workers” in 2012 in the analysis (n of the workers aged between 35-54 years =4,050).
Marital statuses are defined to be “single”, “married” and “ever married” (those widowed, separated, and divorced). Happiness scores are computed into two happiness composite scores; “self-outward happiness” (including the scores of happy heart, happy soul, happy society, happy work life and happy brain) and “self-inward happiness” (including the scores of happy money, happy relax, happy body and happy family).
Preliminary results reveal the significance of “marital status” in affecting happiness/unhappiness of individuals in the middle-aged. For self-outward happiness, the married individuals are more likely to be happy than those who are single. The ever-married are found more likely to be happy than the single. Looking at self-inward happiness, the married individuals are found more likely to be happy than the single individuals. Somehow, the significance is statistically weak at 10 % level. The ever-married individuals are least likely to be happy compared to other groups.