The Happiness Gap

Posted by: Cathy Arnst on July 28

Things are looking grim for us women—seems we are moving inevitably toward the abyss. A new study has found that women start out in their 20s happier than men, but by their 50s they are less happy overall, and stay that way. The reason? Our attainments don’t match our aspirations.

Anke Plagnol of the University of Cambridge and Richard Easterlin, an economist at the University of Southern California, studied data spanning several decades about U.S. men and women to examine the role of unfulfilled desires. Their results, published this month in the Journal of Happiness Studies, found that the nine out of ten men and women want a happy marriage. Men, however, are more likely to marry, and they are also more likely to acheive financial stability, in part because marriage usually improves one’s financial well-being.

“Differences between men and women in aspirations for marriage and children are fairly small,” said Plagnol. “Gender differences in satisfaction depend largely on attainment.” The saddest period of the average man’s life — his 20s — is also the period when he is most likely to be single. Young men are also more dissatisfied than young women with their financial situations, not because they are worse off, but because they want more, the researchers explained.

But, after the age of 34, men are more likely to be married than women, and the gap only widens with age. Men also become more satisfied with their financial situations over time. “Of course, one doesn’t have to be married to be happy, but if that’s something you really want - and it is for most people - then the failure to attain it can have an impact on your overall happiness,” Plagnol said.

This is worrisome, given that the the ratio of unmarried women to men in the U.S. tips in favor of men starting at age 30, and continues to widen every decade following (because men tend to marry younger women). According to the U.S. Census, in 2005 51% of women were living without a spouse, up from 35% in 1950 and 49% in 2000.

I’m hoping that women, particularly single women (like me), will come up with a new model for happiness as we age. It would be great to be in a fulfilling marriage, and I haven’t given up hope, but perhaps our families, our friends, our jobs and our interests can make us happy. A close single friend of mine jokes that we will end up living together in some cottage by the sea, rocking away on the front porch. Not such an unhappy thought.

Over at the The New Scientist blog Short Sharp Science, Tasmin Osborne wonders if the study indicates that men are just better suited to marriage because they get to leave most of the housework and child care to women. And she makes another observation about men and happiness:

It is pretty amusing that, despite the fact that the research found men to have at least as much money, if not more, than women throughout their lives, they still had lower financial satisfaction. There’s no pleasing some people! These findings tie in with previous reports that, despite having more, recent generations are less satisfied with their lot than previous, poorer generations. So perhaps the moral of this story is set your sights low and you won’t be disappointed.

Anyone else have any thoughts about how to close the happiness gap?

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