IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

On Gender Inequality and Life Satisfaction: Does Discrimination Matter?

Author Info

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of gender discrimination on individual life satisfaction using a cross-section of 66 countries. We employ measures of discrimination of women in the economy, in politics, and in society more generally. According to our results, discrimination in politics is important to individual well-being. Overall, men and women are more satisfied with their lives when societies become more equal. Disaggregated analysis suggests that our results for men are driven by the effect of equality on men with middle and high incomes, and those on the political left. To the contrary, women are more satisfied with increasing equality independent of income and political ideology. Equality in economic and family matters does overall not affect life satisfaction. However, women are more satisfied with their lives when discriminatory practices have been less prevalent in the economy 20 years ago.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.kof.ethz.ch/publications/science/pdf/wp_161.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich in its series KOF Working papers with number 07-161.

as
in new window

Length: 29 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:kof:wpskof:07-161
Contact details of provider: Postal: Leonhardstrasse 21, CH-8092 Zürich
Phone: +41 44 632 42 39
Fax: +41 44 632 12 18
Web page: http://www.kof.ethz.ch
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Gender gap; happiness; well-being; discrimination; life satisfaction;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
  • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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.:

as in new window
  1. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2006. "Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender, and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1225-1252, September.
  2. Spielmann, Christian & Busse, Matthias, 2005. "Gender Inequality and Trade," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Kiel 2005 8, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
  3. Wellington, Alison J., 2006. "Self-employment: the new solution for balancing family and career?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 357-386, June.
  4. Shah, Sumitra, 2006. "Sexual Division of Labor in Adam Smith's Work," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(02), pages 221-241, June.
  5. T.D. Stanley & Stephen B. Jarrell, 1998. "Gender Wage Discrimination Bias? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(4), pages 947-973.
  6. David Neumark & Michele McLennan, 1995. "Sex Discrimination and Women's Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(4), pages 713-740.
  7. Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina Fischer, 2007. "The bigger the better? Evidence of the effect of government size on life satisfaction around the world," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 267-292, March.
  8. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2005. "Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 997-1019, June.
  9. Choi, Jin Young & Lee, Sang-Hyop, 2006. "Does prenatal care increase access to child immunization? Gender bias among children in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 107-117, July.
  10. Theodossiou, I., 1998. "The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: A logistic regression approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 85-104, January.
  11. David Neumark & Wendy A. Stock, 2006. "The Labor Market Effects of Sex and Race Discrimination Laws," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 385-419, July.
  12. Michele J. Siegel, 2006. "Measuring the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supply," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 579-601.
  13. Claudia Goldin, 2006. "The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family," NBER Working Papers 11953, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. S. Fernando Rodriguez & Theodore R. Curry & Gang Lee, 2006. "Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(2), pages 318-339.
  15. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2000. "Maximising Happiness?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(2), pages 145-167, 05.
  16. Lesley J. Turner & Sheldon Danziger & Kristin S. Seefeldt, 2006. "Failing the Transition from Welfare to Work: Women Chronically Disconnected from Employment and Cash Welfare," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(2), pages 227-249.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2009. "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 190-225, August.
  2. Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina A. V. Fischer, 2006. "Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19290, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  3. Brule, Gael & Veenhoven, Ruut, 2012. "Why are Latin Europeans less happy? The impact of hierarchy," MPRA Paper 41925, University Library of Munich, Germany.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kof:wpskof:07-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.