Men are more happy than women according to new study.

Principessa

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Posts
18,660
Media
0
Likes
137
Points
193
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
He’s Happier, She’s Less So

September 26, 2007
Economic Scene
By DAVID LEONHARDT

Last year, a team of researchers added a novel twist to something known as a time-use survey. Instead of simply asking people what they had done over the course of their day, as pollsters have been doing since the 1960s, the researchers also asked how people felt during each activity. Were they happy? Interested? Tired? Stressed?

Not surprisingly, men and women often gave similar answers about what they liked to do (hanging out with friends) and didn’t like (paying bills). But there were also a number of activities that produced very different reactions from the two sexes — and one of them really stands out: Men apparently enjoy being with their parents, while women find time with their mom and dad to be slightly less pleasant than doing laundry.

Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist working with four psychologists on the time-use research team, figures that there is a simple explanation for the difference. For a woman, time with her parents often resembles work, whether it’s helping them pay bills or plan a family gathering. “For men, it tends to be sitting on the sofa and watching football with their dad,” said Mr. Krueger, who, when not crunching data, happens to enjoy watching the New York Giants with his father. This intriguing — if unsettling — finding is part of a larger story: there appears to be a growing happiness gap between men and women.

Two new research papers, using very different methods, have both come to this conclusion. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, economists at the University of Pennsylvania (and a couple), have looked at the traditional happiness data, in which people are simply asked how satisfied they are with their overall lives. In the early 1970s, women reported being slightly happier than men. Today, the two have switched places.

Mr. Krueger, analyzing time-use studies over the last four decades, has found an even starker pattern. 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. Forty years ago, a typical woman spent about 23 hours a week in an activity considered unpleasant, or 40 more minutes than a typical man. Today, with men working less, the gap is 90 minutes.

These trends are reminiscent of the idea of “the second shift,” the name of a 1989 book by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild, arguing that modern women effectively had to hold down two jobs. The first shift was at the office, and the second at home.

But researchers who have looked at time-use data say the second-shift theory misses an important detail. Women are not actually working more than they were 30 or 40 years ago. They are instead doing different kinds of work. They’re spending more time on paid work and less on cleaning and cooking.

What has changed — and what seems to be the most likely explanation for the happiness trends — is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did (including helping their aging parents). They can’t possibly get it all done, and many end up feeling as if they are somehow falling short.

Mr. Krueger’s data, for instance, shows that the average time devoted to dusting has fallen significantly in recent decades. There haven’t been any dust-related technological breakthroughs, so houses are probably just dirtier than they used to be. I imagine that the new American dustiness affects women’s happiness more than men’s.

Ms. Stevenson was recently having drinks with a business school graduate who came up with a nice way of summarizing the problem. Her mother’s goals in life, the student said, were to have a beautiful garden, a well-kept house and well-adjusted children who did well in school. “I sort of want all those things, too,” the student said, as Ms. Stevenson recalled, “but I also want to have a great career and have an impact on the broader world.”

It’s telling that there is also a happiness gap between boys and girls in high school. As life has generally gotten better over the last generation — less crime, longer-living grandparents and much cooler gadgets — male high school seniors have gotten happier. About 25 percent say they are very satisfied with their lives, up from 16 percent in 1976. Roughly 22 percent of senior girls now give that answer, unchanged from the 1970s.

When Ms. Stevenson and I were talking last week about possible explanations, she mentioned her “hottie theory.” It’s based on an April article in this newspaper by Sara Rimer, about a group of incredibly impressive teenage girls in Newton, Mass. The girls were getting better grades than the boys, playing varsity sports, helping to run the student government and doing community service. Yet one girl who had gotten a perfect 2,400 on her S.A.T. noted that she and her friends still felt pressure to be “effortlessly hot.”

As Ms. Stevenson, who’s 36, said: “When I was in high school, it was clear being a hottie was the most important thing, and it’s not that it’s any less important today. It’s that other things have become more important. And, frankly, people spent a lot of time trying to be a hottie when I was in high school. So I don’t know where they find the time today.”

The two new papers — Mr. Krueger’s will be published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and the Stevenson-Wolfers one is still in draft form — are part of a burst of happiness research in recent years. There is no question that the research has its limitations. Happiness, of course, is highly subjective.

A big reason that women reported being happier three decades ago — despite far more discrimination — is probably that they had narrower ambitions, Ms. Stevenson says. Many compared themselves only to other women, rather than to men as well. This doesn’t mean they were better off back then than they are now.
 

Not_Punny

Superior Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2007
Posts
5,464
Media
109
Likes
3,056
Points
258
Location
California
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
Explains a lot! And don't forget, if the mama ain't happy, nobody is happy... wait! I just contradicted myself... the article...

Never mind.

* goes off to mope if my not-clean-enough-kitchen! *
 

ManiacalMadMan

Experimental Member
Joined
May 20, 2006
Posts
1,073
Media
0
Likes
21
Points
183
Age
68
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
Men are happier for many reasons One other reason not shown in most survey quizzes is that men get to view other men in the bath room at the urinal It may sound terrible that this makes some men happier but It may account for help in making the day better.
 

SpoiledPrincess

Expert Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Posts
7,868
Media
0
Likes
121
Points
193
Location
england
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
Yeah we'd swap the multiple orgasm for pissing standing up anytime - fat chance :)

I wonder how much of the results are that women and men may view happiness differently, I know when I was married my husband viewed contentment as happiness whereas I required actual happiness.
 

Principessa

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Posts
18,660
Media
0
Likes
137
Points
193
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
Men are happier for many reasons One other reason not shown in most survey quizzes is that men get to view other men in the bath room at the urinal It may sound terrible that this makes some men happier but It may account for help in making the day better.

That's silly! If ladies bathrooms had clear stall walls we'd probably all have bladder infections because we would all hold it in and refuse to use public toilets.
 

transformer_99

Experimental Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2006
Posts
2,429
Media
0
Likes
10
Points
183
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Male
This has to be attributable to golf, fishing or some other sport. To be honest, when I look at some of the things women do for recreation. The happiest women I've seen are those that have similar interests that men do. Scrap booking, yeah, I'd be a miserable beotch too if that was all I had to look forward to in my spare time. Want to see a happy woman, go to a gun range.
 

HazelGod

Sexy Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Posts
7,154
Media
1
Likes
30
Points
183
Location
The Other Side of the Pillow
Sexuality
99% Straight, 1% Gay
Gender
Male
I agree with SP...happiness is highly subjective at the individual level, although most men I know tend to believe that the signpost to happiness says feed me, fuck me, shut the fuck up. What can I say? We're simple creatures.
 

Principessa

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Posts
18,660
Media
0
Likes
137
Points
193
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
I agree with SP...happiness is highly subjective at the individual level, although most men I know tend to believe that the signpost to happiness says feed me, fuck me, shut the fuck up. What can I say? We're simple creatures.
That's it, that's all you want? I guess I made this giant Dagwood sandwich for nothing then. :tongue:
 

Osiris

Experimental Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2007
Posts
2,666
Media
0
Likes
13
Points
183
Location
Wherever the dolphins are going
Sexuality
No Response
Gender
Male
What's that smell? Did someone let the cows up in here to graze? OH! It's the stench coming off this report by the researchers. :fart:


This is crap. Different strokes for different folks. I am sure this is the research team that gave us such gems as...

  • McDonald's males pepole fat.
  • The Holocaust didn't happen.
  • Elvis Presley is alive and living in Paducah, Kentucky working at Burger King.
And my favorite
  • The moon is made of green cheese.
I read these sorts of things and it makes me want pimp slap the S.O.B. that signed off on their funding.