According to today’s New York Times, Americans are increasingly facing a happiness gap — men are becoming more relaxed and happier than women. It’s an article that describes how two recent studies appear to have come to similar conclusions. Yet the devil is always in the details.
The thesis is intriguing:
Since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back on activities they find unpleasant. They now work less and relax more.
Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past.
Great, so let’s look at the two paper presentations (sorry, these are not peer-reviewed, published studies, you know, the stuff we actually like to draw conclusions from — the first red flag this is going to be a “fluff piece” of journalism). Here’s what Krueger’s paper said:
The activity-based [misery index] shows very little trend over the last 40 years for men and women combined or for women as a group. For men, however, there has been a shift away from activities associated with unpleasant feelings.
[…] The results indicate that, for the population as a whole, changes in time allocation over the past 40 years have not led to a decrease in the amount of time people spend in activities associated with unpleasant feelings.
So, contrary to the author’s assertion, women aren’t less happy (“She’s Less So”). The only data trending shown in this study is that, somehow, men are spending less time with paid work. Which kind of goes against virtually everything we know about work in America, which is that most Americans — men included — feel like they are working more and getting paid less (if not in money, then in benefits or vacation). I don’t know of anyone who’s work week has actually decreased in the past 20 or 30 years — everyone I know still works 40 or more hours per week. Government census data consistently supports this fact.
Which means that perhaps the Princeton Affect and Time Survey, patterned after the American Time Use Survey, may not be accurately measuring men’s work-time.
The second paper is far more complicated because it attempts to pull together international, disparate data from multiple sources (some of high reliability, some of questionably scientific reliability). The first red flag presented itself in Table 1, which caused me not to bother with an in-depth analysis of the rest of the tables or data.
The table in question presents 2 sets of data, which purportedly show trends that support the authors’ conclusions. But the table is drawn from a question that gives 3 possible responses, not two, so where’s the third set I wondered? Well, conveniently the raw data is available for my own analysis and I ran the same analysis the authors did, but with the missing third set of data. Voila! The missing set of data from “Pretty Happy” shows a clear upward trend from 1972 to 2006, which far better accounts for the downward decline of the “Very Happy” responses amongst women. The “Not Happy” category remains virtually unchanged as a trendline. So yes, women are becoming more “Pretty Happy” and less “Very Happy.” Given these are completely subjective terms, and that women’s role in modern American society has significantly changed (largely for the better) since 1972, I’m not sure I’d read all that much into these data. Certainly not as much as the authors have.
Commenting on dusting in American households (which has what to do with happiness, one can only guess), the NY Times author says — sardonically one hopes — “I imagine that the new American dustiness affects women’s happiness more than men’s.”
So the real story is far simpler (but less interesting) — times have become more complex and simplistic questions that ask about people’s “general happiness” aren’t a very good nor accurate gauge of real happiness in our lives. Whether there exists any actual change in men’s or women’s general happiness isn’t probably as important a question as the one that matters to you — are you more or less happy than you were 10 years ago? And what can you do today to help change that for the better?
9 comments
Of course men are happier. They have all the power and privilege. Women endure sexual harassment, abuse, less pay, less respect, degradation, and other inequalities on a DAILY basis.
Other countries have figured it out, there are more equality based laws and policies in Sweden than any other. We could be more equal but the conservatives hold us back with their “family values” that are so skewed I’m not sure how anyone buys into that crap. (Do not tell me to go to another country for wanting to make this one more fair and equal for all its citizens.)
I agree with the last paragraph. Statistics isn’t always accurate since it doesn’t question each and everyone. What matters is our own happiness.
September 28, 2007
In the community where I live, a person’s social status is based on their occupation. So the lower the status of work a person does, the happier he or she is as they get closer to retiring. I was a stay-at-home mother and enjoyed that time immensely even when money was scarce. It allowed my to be creative and take care of my family and my health. After the kids left home and I struggled to find meaningful paid work, but only found stressful and/or manual labour that I didnt have the stamina to do, I grew much less happy with the daily pressures to work, take care of family and keep up appearances.
So at 54, far from retiring, I have decided to do what I am good at and that is unpaid caretaking (mother-in-law, volunteer work where I have a great deal of control and finish my university education in subjects that I am really interested in, psychology and sociology. I am happy once again. And no, I will not have any of my own money when I retire and I will not be sorry for a single day. Even if I end up on a government pension, I will still be able to volunteer and make the most of each day.
Sounds as if Imperfectly has had a rough time finding a place to fit. The attitude may have something to do with her perception and positon. I work with many women who are quite balanced in their lives and content with their careers. They decided to pursue happiness, as the Declaration of Independence indicates is their right. Imperfectly has the right to pursue, not to be guaranteed a result….and if she fails in that pursuit, I doubt the fault lies at the feet of all men everywhere (who actually have provided us a pretty good country, if you think about it!)
I don’t think men are happier than women in general. The information they gathered may be true to most men and women, but it doesn’t mean everyone feels the same way about it.
NY Times printing BULLSHIT doesn’t surprise anyone. Worldwide men account from 80 to 95 % of suicides, 99% of combat deaths, 98% of job related deaths and injuries, living 5 – 8 years less on average, being dumped 90% of the time, rejected 100% of the time (no woman has to risk rejection, it’s our job to), the woman not the man filing for divorce most of the time, getting custody of kids most of the time, with 1 out of 5 men marrying a gold digger, 1 out of ten being duped into raising another man’s kids, with gender biased laws whereby a woman has her husband by his balls, more men being raped in prison then women similarly assaulted on the street, with gender biased laws, and with men being ridiculed on tv, with all the misandry going on, men are slightly happier? BULLSHIT!!!!! Think of it, if men are happier why men commit suicides four times more then women? This is a pernicious lie fabricated by feminists to continue playing the victim card despite having the upper hand, and to redirect attention away from the real victims who desperately need it! outrageous! what else to expect from the New York Times, a feminist propaganda tool. nobody trusts a word this irrational paper prints. the fact that anyone would read New York Times at all to me would be a big red flag about his elementary common sense! I tell you, it’s not that men are happier, it’s that they whine less about their huge problems then women do about the tiniest inconveniences. women never had it rough, they lead a pampered sheltered existence and if you so much as breathe on her, it’s apocalypse for her.
Men are less likely to keep complaining about their problems, and are not as negative imo, but they aren’t any more happier then women. As leo above me said, men commit suicide at a much quicker rate then woman, and we’re killed much quicker by more of us being in the war or prison. From what I see, women are treated with such respect, but that’s not to say that women elsewhere are treated bad.. I just don’t think that men are happier then women at all. Men are likely to do something about what makes them unhappy or angry, while women are more likely to internalize it or just talk about it.
Women are denigrated in this society and always have been. Patriarchy devalues women and the work we do in this society. Only in this country have we never seen a female head of state. Women still get paid less than a man despite having the same qualifications, are exploited via porn and other media, and are more likely to be abused from childhood onwards. Women are more likely to be judged on their external appearance than men and are more likely to be discriminated against in the workplace. If a man can manage to stay out of prison, his chances of being raped are negligible. Most women, on the other hand, have been raped or sexually assaulted by the time the reach early adulthood. This is a patriarchal rape culture that victimizes all women and their children. Women have good reason to be depressed in this disgusting patriarchy. What a quaint, parochial, and backward country we have that wants to set women’s rights back 100 years. Yes, we are miserable.
I think, perhaps, if men AND women stopped arguing about who was happier, everyone might actually get a little more “happy” in their lives…