Working Paper: NBER ID: w14969
Authors: Betsey Stevenson; Justin Wolfers
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.
Keywords: female happiness; subjective well-being; gender gap; labor force participation; socioeconomic changes
JEL Codes: D6; I32; J1; J7; K1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Changes in women's opportunities (J16) | Subjective well-being (I31) |
| Improvements in labor force participation (J49) | Subjective well-being (I31) |
| Wage equality (J31) | Subjective well-being (I31) |
| Increased work-life pressures (J29) | Female happiness (J16) |
| Changing societal expectations (P17) | Female happiness (J16) |
| Women's happiness (I31) | Men's happiness (I31) |