Being a single mother does not have a negative impact on a woman's happiness, a new study suggests.

According to European researchers, raising children on your own can create many challenges, such as a lack of support from a partner, financial problems, and social disapproval. However, it does not appear to make women unhappy.

The study involved women who were single when they gave birth undergoing in-depth interviews. They were then surveyed over the next decade to see how they were getting on.

The researchers found that being responsible for a child helped many of the women to leave unhappy or unhealthy relationships. It also made them more cautious about new partners, placing them on a ‘better track' when it came to future relationships.

"Despite all of the difficulties and problems, or maybe because of them, the children are moved to the absolute center of the woman's universe and they are the brightest aspect of their lives. Moreover, children often give women the power to make decisions they had not been able to make before pregnancy," they commented.

The researchers pointed out that the arrival of a child ‘either had no impact or even increased the happiness of the single mothers'.

The study was carried out in Poland, where social acceptance of single mothers remains relatively low and social welfare support is limited. The researchers said that given these circumstances, they would have expected single mothers to display greater signs of unhappiness.

"All in all, we found no evidence to support the assumption that the lives of women who became single mothers would have turned out better if they had not given birth and had not decided to raise on their own," they added.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.