One common yet counterintuitive finding in the life satisfaction literature is that women on average report higher life satisfaction than men, even though they’re worse off in many measurable ways. This finding raises the question: are women actually happier than men, or are they just reporting that they’re happier? My job market paper seeks to answer that question.
The 2003 Pew Global Attitudes Project that surveyed 38,000 men and women across 44 countries lends insight into the disparities between male and female happiness. Overall, women scored themselves as more satisfied with their lives than men [source: Pew Research Center]. Moreover, women from certain countries, including Pakistan, Japan and Argentina, appeared significantly happier. The differences between what affects men and women's levels of happiness explains this slight gender gap. Women, for instance, tend to focus on personal and domestic problems, while men concern themselves more with matters outside of the home.
Regarding the assumption that men are less happy than women, I am not sure things are so simple," says the psychiatrist. "There is a plethora of reasons why men might be more likely to commit suicide than women whilst not, on the whole, 'sadder’. And despite the differences in brain biology we are aware of, there may be other factors of which we are not.
Boys reported higher life satisfaction over all. But the report highlighted some elevated risk factors for male adolescents. It found that boys were more likely to engage in physical fights and to experience injury. They smoked tobacco and drank alcohol more often, though in some countries, gender differences in those behaviors were narrowing “as girls adopt behaviors typically regarded as masculine.
women suffer from depression, the ‘stiff upper lip’ male mentality may be skewing these statistics. Rather than seeking help, men deal with their emotional pain through drug use and addiction
On average, when rating how satisfied they are with their present lives as a whole, women put themselves at 2.98 on a 1-5 scale, and men put themselves at a 2.95, for an overall gap of about 0.03. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s actually a big difference: its equivalent to the increase in life satisfaction that comes from moving up their country’s income distribution by about 5 percentage points. In the U.S, that’s equivalent to making $2,000 to $4,000 extra per year. When I control for other characteristics – country, income, employment status, marital status, education level, whether or not the person has health problems, and whether they live in an urban or a rural area – the gap more than doubles. That’s about the same as the increase in life satisfaction from moving up the income distribution by more than a decile, getting an extra $5,000 to $14,000 per year in the U.S.
Montgomery realized she could use these responses to better understand the happiness gender gap. Did women also think these hypothetical people were happier than men? It turned out they did. The average woman scored the hypothetical people .04 points higher in life satisfaction than the average man. Not only do women say they are more satisfied with their lives, they think others are most satisfied with their lives, too. Montgomery points out that if women and men’s responses are scored relative to how satisfied they think others are, women are indeed less happy than men.
This variation in values is also reflected in how the recent recession has affected people's happiness. According to a Nielson Happiness Survey conducted in 51 countries, men's happiness hasn't weathered the economic storm well since they attach more importance to financial success than women. On the other hand, the women surveyed indicated they appreciated quality relationships above all
Still, part of the puzzle remains unsolved. Why does the typical woman think people are generally more satisfied with life than the average man? Montgomery has one idea, though she notes it’s definitely just speculation for now: I m most convinced by the idea that, on average, women have had less to aspire to, so it’s easier to reach goals.
These influences are extremely complex and differ from person to person. Although there are significant differences - both social and biological - in the way men and women experience and cope with depression, the individual factors are, in my view, far more important than gender itself.
