women's happiness declining over time

Blog Challenge: Day 16

So I definitely almost forgot to post today!

Last fall, the Huffington Post "Living" blog ran a series of articles about the decline in women's happiness over the last 40 years. Based on data--gathered and analyzed in the paper "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness"--Marcus Buckingham discussed the surprising fact that women's happiness has trended downward as compared to men's, despite gradual increases in power and prosperity. Here are the two principle findings:

1. Since 1972, women's overall level of happiness has dropped, both relative to where they were forty years ago, and relative to men. You find this drop in happiness in women regardless of whether they have kids, how many kids they have, how much money they make, how healthy they are, what job they hold, whether they are married, single or divorced, how old they are, or what race they are. (The one and only exception: African-American women are now slightly happier than they were back in 1972, although they remain less happy than African American men.)


2. Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy. Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older. By the time women reach age forty-seven, they are, overall, less happy with their life than men, and the trend continues on down from there.

Most people are-understandably-perplexed by this finding. You'd think that gender parity and increased quality of life would be leading to increased happiness, not the other way around. Buckingham puts it this way: "To use Thomas Jefferson's words, though women now have the liberty to choose whichever life they'd like, many are struggling in their pursuit of a happy life."

So, what's up with the findings?

The article asserts that these trends are not caused by women working longer hours than men. We know this because women don't work more hours than men. Nor are they caused by gender-based stereotyping. Nor, are they caused by women bearing a disproportionate burden of the workload at home, the 'second-shift' as some have labeled it. While women still do more cooking, cleaning and child-caring than men, the trend lines are actually all moving toward greater parity.

On the other hand, we seem to know what is causing men's slight increase in happiness...it's increased prosperity. Over the last 40 years, U.S. GDP has had climbed 3.1% per year...and increases in national GDP correlate to increases in national levels of happiness....which makes women's decline even more odd.

While the articles don't actually offer too much in the way of definitive explanation for this, the one thing noted for certain is that women are harder on themselves than men. In national polls, when women and men are asked the question, "Which do you think will help you be most successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?" men split right down the middle, while 73% of women report they would focus on fixing their weaknesses. Based on this, the author concludes that since women have (over the past 40 years) gradually acquired more and more domains in which they are supposed to succeed, one would expect that women characterize themselves more and more by who they aren't. In turn, they may become more and more self-critical, and more aware of their flaws and failings...all of which might well accelerate these dissatisfaction trend-lines.

This last part about having more and more domains in which we are supposed to succeed is especially relevant to us as younger women. Women can do so much more today than in the past...and as such, we feel pressure to do much more than ever before.

Thoughts? Does this seem like a plausible correlation? Do you feel this pressure?

:-D