The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness
By Betsey Stevenson, University of Pennsylvania,
CESifo and NBER, Justin Wolfers, University of Pennsylvania,
CESifo, CEPR, NBER and IZA
May 2009-discussion paper
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 wellbeing, 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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