Two college professors, Chris M. Herbst and John Ifcher, are challenging the collective, if counterintuitive, wisdom. Being a parent, they say, really does make people happier than the alternative — in part because over the past few decades, those who aren’t parents have been becoming gradually less happy.

Dr. Herbst, an assistant professor of public affairs and social work at Arizona State University, and Dr. Ifcher, an assistant professor of economics at Santa Clara University, set out to critically assess the body of research that led to the generally accepted “parental happiness gap” — repeated findings showing that parents are less happy, experience more depression and anxiety, and are more likely to be unhappy in their marriages than those who are not parents.

In 2010, Jennifer Senior wrote a cover story for New York magazine, “Why Parents Hate Parenting.” which provoked a collective howl of outrage — a data rebellion. How had we been conned into participating in this betrayal of our children? We are, too, declared parents, happier with our children than without.

What the two researchers found, in a paper titled “A Bundle of Joy: Does Parenting Really Make You Miserable?” (presented at the annual Population Conference of America), suggests that the balance of happiness is shifting, and that ultimately, we who protest as parents may be proved right. But it’s not necessarily because we’re getting happier. Rather, parents’ happiness has held steady over time, while the absolute happiness of those who aren’t parents responding to questions like “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days — are you very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” decreased from 1972 to 2008.

Why? We believe, Dr. Herbst wrote in an e-mail, “that children may inoculate parents from many social, cultural, and economic changes that have conspired to reduce most Americans’ happiness.” Other research suggests that a decline in community and political involvement, a sense of disconnect from family and friends, and a feeling of economic insecurity reduces people’s reported sense of well-being, but parents “have been relatively immune to those changes.” Instead, parents, according to their presented findings, “have become relatively more likely to visit friends, to get the news every day, and to remain engaged in politics,” and even to “agree that ‘family income is high enough to satisfy nearly all important desires.'”

“Happy” is a complex construct, an ever-changing barometer, and the ultimate in subjective standards: you’re only as happy as you say you are. Do parents have an advantage in having effectively created an excuse to do the things that seem to promote feelings of happiness, like personal interactions and a space in even a small community? Economists and social scientists will surely continue to try to work that one out. But at least those of us with children can be happy with this round of research findings — though they make provoke protest in others corners. The parents are all right.