The Gum Tree for 2007 September 27

By most 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 male happiness.

A couple of interesting papers are getting some press recently. This one shows that women are less happy. Interesting, also, is this quote:

While each of these trends have impacted both men and women, it is possible for even apparently gender-neutral trends to have gender-biased impacts if men and women respond differently to these forces.

The authors of the study cite risk as one of those gender-neutral trends which might affect women who may be more risk-averse (e.g. changing workplace environment, being laid-off, having to ask for a raise) than are men. It is illustrative that the same kind of idea which got Lawrence Summers fired and made full-grown women scientist run for the bathroom with urges to vomit, is starting to be acknowledged: that women are in fact different from men (something that we were unlearned of in public elementary schools). A New York Times Op-Ed Column investigated this and other recent findings in the ‘happiness gap’ and eventually fell back on the facile platitudes that “men need to shoulder their fair share,” and that there needs to be universal preschool and paid child leave. Of course this ignores the research by Stephenson and Wolfers which specifically controlled for those variables (showing, for example, that there is little difference in happiness even for women who have husbands who do more chores around the house compared to those whose husbands do far less work). But, as my wife gets ready to re-enter the workforce next week, I don’t deny that I am also trying to find the right balance in life so that she might be more happy.