There is an interesting discussion by Posner on the limits of GDP & its relationship with happiness on the Becker/Posner blog
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/01/why-arent-americans-happierposner.html
In discussing a paper by Stevenson and Wolfers, “The Decline of Female Happiness” he notes that "..[t]hey speculate (plausibly, in my opinion) that because women are on average more risk-averse than men, they find the range of career and relationship choices open to women nowadays a source of unhappiness".
So if we restricted women's career choices they would be better off. Presumably removing the vote would also reduce stress?
For a humourous take on this see the Harry Enfield sketch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w&feature=player_embedded
10 comments:
Lest the heavily ironic tone in which that was written not be transparent, I don't find the Posner/Stevenson & Wolfer's argument plausible.
I think the argument might be more plausible if it was counched in terms of women having higher stress levels, rather than lower happiness. There is some evidence that increased career opportunities for women (while overall surely a good thing) may contribute to high stress levels as women are expected to juggle careers with parenting and home duties in a way which is still not expected of men. I think there is some support for this in work I have done on stress differences by gender for Ireland which is forthcoming in Social Indicators Research http://www.springerlink.com/content/h0634976451q4734/ or here is an earlier working paper version http://www.ucd.ie/economics/research/papers/2008/WP08.03.pdf .
Also, it really isn't clear that anyone in the debate is suggesting that reversing trends in labour force participation would be the best solution. You could equally extrapolate that changing labour market rules to make them more female-friendly would be a policy conclusion.
I suppose David, in that case its not women having too much choice, its having too little? So its not really about uncertainty per se.
I have come across work suggesting that women are more risk averse but I don't know how solid a finding that is & whether the contexts in which it is found (lab experiments, stock markets) generalize to these big life choices.
And to think that just last week, Rosie the Riveter was on the cover of The Economist celebrating women's emerging majority in the American workforce. We don't know what's good for us!
I think it's plausible that the problem is more the lack of family-friendly working conditions. Especially in America where maternity leave is close to non-existent.
Also Catriona, there still is a big debate about what the trends in female well-being are and how they should be interpreted. One of the key issues is "threshold-shift", namely people imposing higher standards on what constitutes well-being as they become wealthier and have more opportunities. Some believe that this should be somehow taken out of the well-being measures but another view is that it is a legitimate component of well-being.
Did you know that the original Rosie the Riveter worked in Ypsilanti, Michigan, home of the Perry pre-school project? She was from Kentucky originally.
A connection with early childhood interventions?! She could be the poster girl for the PFL team!
Yeah Liam, I agree with the idea of the "threshold-shift". Also, another point that Stevenson and Wolfers mention: maybe women's reference group has changed to include men. It could be argued that women perceive their lives to be more stressful now because they're comparing themselves to their male counterparts.
Catriona
the delay in comments coming up is because I have a comment moderation system to stem the deluge of bizarre spam that hits the blog. Martin can set you up on the account if you have a gmail account.
I like Caitriona's suggestion of the poster girl (though I wouldn't have had the courage to suggest it).
So in countries where women are perceived to have much less freedom (say because of religion), what is known about their subjective well-being?
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