A new Australian study reveals that couples that have both a daughter and son are less likely to divorce than those who only have daughters or only have sons.

The study, which was conducted by the Australian National University, reveals that parents that have a boy and a girl are more likely to be happy in their marriage and less likely to separate and that unmarried parents are more likely to tie the knot if they have a child of each gender.

Lead researchers Andrew Leigh Andrew Leigh analyzed 60,000 families from the past five Australian censuses between 1981 and 2001 to find out whether parents' decision to get married, stay married or divorces related to the sex of their children, according to Africa Online.

"Among two-child families, parents with two children of the same sex are 1.7 percentage points less likely to be married than parents with a boy and a girl," Leigh says.

"Among two-child families, one of each seems better for relationships than two of a kind," he adds.

Similar research conducted in the United States showed that parents with two daughters were most likely to divorce than others, although no such evidence was found in the Australian study.