After 40 years of fighting for equality, why are women not happy?

After 40 years of fighting for equality, it seems that women are no happier. In fact, women in many countries have been growing steadily unhappier compared with men, according to a study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States.

In The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the University of Pennsylvania, begin by noting the gains.

“By many measures the progress of women over recent decades has been extraordinary: the gender wage gap has partly closed; educational attainment has risen and is now surpassing that of men; women have gained an unprecedented level of control over fertility; (and) technological change in the form of new domestic appliances has freed women from domestic drudgery,” they wrote.

Yet Stevenson and Wolfers have found that in America women’s happiness, far from rising, has fallen “both absolutely and relatively to that of men”. Where women in the 1970s reported themselves to be significantly happier than men, now for the first time they are reporting levels of happiness lower than men.

In Europe, people’s sense of happiness has risen slightly, but less so for women than men. In 12 European countries, including Britain, the happiness of women has fallen relative to that of men.

The authors readily admit that measuring happiness is necessarily a subjective task, but the overall trend from the data, compiled from social surveys conducted over many years, is clear and compelling.

The work builds on earlier research by Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at Warwick University, who has a particular interest in the study of happiness. He said: “What Betsey and Justin have done, which is a valuable addition, is to show that the trend is found rather widely. For most of the post-war era, happiness surveys showed women noticeably happier than men. That difference has now eroded to zero.”

The big question is: why?

If Your Have That Nagging Feeling of Uncertainty, Just Say No

I just read a blog that may have saved my life. For the past few weeks my husband and I have been discussing whether or not to get an au pair to help make our lives easier as I slowly transition back to work after having been a SAHM of four kids for 10 years. We have been ambivalent, at best, about the decision of whether to welcome a foreign-born stranger into our household to take care of our chidren. Just writing it here makes me feel crazy that I would even contemplate such folly! Then I read a blog on hybridmom.com entitled "LifeSaver" which gave this advice: "Just say no. If you're not sure about the question, whether it's a commitment, a new activity, a request for help, an expense... if you have that little nagging feeling of uncertainty, just say no. Wait. You can always change your mind and say yes later, but once you've committed it's hard to undo. I've been saved many a mistake by saying no, stepping back, and considering.”