Are men happier than women?
The New York Times reports on a new twist on 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?
Interestingly, the researchers found that there appears to be a “growing happiness gap between men and women”, and, unlike the results from the 1970’s men seem to be happier than women.
One contributing factor is that women now spend more time doing paid work than they did years ago:
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.
It looks as if men are spending less time on things they consider unpleasant, and, women are spending more time on “unpleasant” tasks, but, I bristle at the notion that men are leaving the burden of the work to women while they relax.
Happiness is your own responsibility whether you are a man or a woman.
However? If you want to clean my bathrooms, I will sure let you.
Tags: are-men-happier-than-women, Career and Kids, New-York-TimesRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Work and Life
1 opinion for Are men happier than women?
Kate
Sep 29, 2007 at 6:28 am
I think this is probably not as easy to analyse.
Who is happier: married, divorced or never married men? Likewise for women. You could probably add custodial and /or non custodial parent to the survey and break down the ansers even farther.
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