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The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness

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Author Info
Betsey Stevenson
Justin Wolfers

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Abstract

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging -- one with higher subjective well-being for men.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14969.

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Date of creation: May 2009
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14969

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
K1 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 27-52, Spring.
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  2. Daniel Kahneman & Alan B. Krueger, 2006. "Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2007. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time over Five Decades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 122(3), pages 969-1006, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Bjørnskov, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Fischer, Justina AV, 2007. "On Gender Inequality and Life Satisfaction: Does Discrimination Matter?," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 657, Stockholm School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Silvia Pezzini, 2005. "The Effect of Women's Rights on Women's Welfare: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(502), pages C208-C227, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Stefano Bartolini & Ennio Bilancini & Maurizio Pugno, 2008. "Did the Decline in Social Capital Depress Americans’ Happiness?," Department of Economics University of Siena 540, Department of Economics, University of Siena. [Downloadable!]
  2. David G. Blanchflower, 2008. "International evidence on well-being," NBER Working Papers 14318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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