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.
*Published:
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.
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