Women's Happiness: What We Know For Certain

Last week, I posted a piece called "What's happening to women's happiness?" in which I highlighted two longitudinal trends--a) women are less happy than they were forty years ago, as compared to men, and b) as women get older they get sadder--and I asked what might be causing these trends.

Some of you didn't think this was much to fuss over--"It's not depression or neurosis we're talking about here, it's only sadness." But many of you took these trends seriously--while a life of utter contentment is a fool's goal, who would ever wish on those they love a life of increasing unhappiness?--and, as you can see from the responses, thousands of you here and elsewhere offered explanations.

Obviously, no one explanation is entirely sufficient, and many are spiced with speculation. In this post, I'll take the five most-frequently asked questions and tell you what we know for certain.

Are these trends increasing or decreasing?

They are increasing. In the previous post, I presented Plagnol and Easterlin's graph showing that, according to the U.S. General Social Survey, women begin their lives more satisfied than men and then become less satisfied with every aspect of their lives as they age.

This used to be true. Today, women don't even begin their adult lives happier than men. Here's a graph showing the relative levels of life satisfaction of 430,000 12th graders, girls as compared to boys; boys' happiness is the constant black line. (This graph is taken from the Monitoring the Future survey data).

Yes, in Churchill's words, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics," but still, it's hard not to look at this graph and conclude that contemporary life is disproportionately stressful for young women, that this stress puts them at an immediate disadvantage, and that this state of affairs is damaging, wasteful, and needless.

So, if you find it hard to relate to the gradual decline in women's happiness, if you always feel focused and successful, with plenty of energy and time, and what few doubts you have are quickly drowned out by the many moments of real fulfillment, well done to you.

Just know that, in aggregate, the next generation of women doesn't feel as you do.

What is causing men's happiness to rise?

Some of you looked at the gradual climb in men's happiness and wondered whether '"Feminism had benefitted men more than women." You may be right, though the data points the other way--in 1977, 35% of men in dual-earner couples reported feeling some kind of work/life conflict, whereas today 59% of men do.

However, we know what is causing men's slight increase in happiness and it's not Feminism. It's increased prosperity. Over the last 40 years, the Gross Domestic Product of the U.S. has climbed 3.1% per year and, though money neither buys nor sustains happiness for individuals, increases in national G.D.P. do correlate to increases in national levels of happiness.

This makes women's decline even more startling. The tide of prosperity should have raised everyone's spirits, but instead, women's have gradually sunk lower.

Are women simply more honest about their feelings?

Maybe. Maybe men, in aggregate, are emotionally closed off, out of touch with their true emotions, and so, though they are actually as unhappy as women, they just don't know it; or won't admit it.

Maybe.

But even if we accept this as true, surely it isn't a recent development. If emotional distance is simply part of being a man and emotional sensitivity is part of being a woman, these characteristics would have been as true 40 years ago as they supposedly are today. That would make them a constant. In which case it's hard to see how they could be the cause of these recent changes in women's happiness.

What we do know for certain is that women are harder on themselves than men. When nationally representative polls of women and men are asked the question, "Which do you think will help you be most successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?" men split right down the middle, whereas 73% of women report they would focus on fixing their weaknesses. This too may be a constant--and I stress "may" be--but if it is, then it is a constant that creates a downward spiral of dissatisfaction. Since women, as a group, believe that success flows from drilling down into their weaknesses, and since, as has happened to women over the last 40 years, they've gradually acquired more and more domains in which they are supposed to succeed, a researcher would expect to see women characterizing themselves more and more by who they aren't, becoming more and more self-critical, and more aware of their flaws and failings, all of which might well accelerate these dissatisfaction trend-lines.

Are women unhappy because they are trying to become men?

Some of you suggested that what was causing the decline was women straying too far from their natural role as caretakers of the home and family, that, in a sense, women were better off 40 years ago, when the challenges of running a home and raising kids gave women a unique, valuable and, above all, focused role to play. (As I mentioned in my previous post, 42% of men and 39% of women do believe that it is natural for women to play this role.)

I have my own opinions on this: that while, for obvious reasons, women are compelled to make a greater biological investment in bearing and raising babies than men, this does not apply to raising toddlers and teenagers, nor to running the home, and that, even if it did, what is natural is not necessarily right. (It is natural for the strong to dominate the weak, but it is rarely moral.)

However, my opinions are beside the point. What we know for certain is that returning women to the role of primary caretaker won't make most women happier. We know this because whenever and wherever the research is done on this subject, the results are always the same: women with no kids are, in general, happier than women with kids. I realize this sounds perverse--who doesn't love their kids--and yet the research has been repeated so many times, in so many countries, there's no escaping it. Kids, it turns out, are a bundle of stress. They may give our lives trajectory, and meaning, and purpose, but their gift to us is not happiness. Of course, this does not apply to all women--some women feel as though they were put here for the sole and express purpose of raising their kids and nothing, no professional dream or accomplishment, can compare to the joy of this. What the data show, though, is that these women are in the minority.

And the kids appear to be aware of this. A recent study of a thousand 3rd-12th graders asked: "If you were granted one wish that would change the way that your mother's work affects your life, what would that wish be?" In a parallel study, their mothers were asked to guess what their children would wish for. Here's what they found: "Most mothers (56%) guessed that their children would wish for more time with them. In fact, only 10% of children made that wish. Their most frequent wish: 'I want my mom to be less stressed and tired' (34%)."

Why am I, a man, writing about this?

I'm writing about it because this is what I do. It is my area of expertise. I study groups of people who excel at something, examine the research, and draw conclusions.

I am not a housekeeper, but when I joined the Gallup Organization back in 1987, my first assignment was to design psychological tests to help Walt Disney World select more housekeepers like their best housekeepers. The initial step in the design process was to gather a small study group of the very best housekeepers and ask them questions to discover the traits or habits or insights they shared. So, imagine eight housekeepers sitting around a table, some nervous, others completely relaxed chatting away in English or Haitian Creole or Portuguese. One of them had been a housekeeper for only 18 months, while another had cleaned the same section of rooms in the same hotel for 23 years. They were of different races, sexes, and ages. They didn't know each other.

And yet, when I asked them the question, "How do you know if a room is clean?" they all spontaneously gave the same answer: "To know if a room is clean, the last thing you do before leaving it is to lie on the guest's bed and turn on the ceiling fan."

"Why?"

"Because," they explained, "that is the very first thing that a guest will do after a long day out. They will walk into the room, flop down on the bed and turn on the fan. If dust comes off the top of the fan, no matter how sparkling clean the rest of the room is, the guest might think it is as dirty as the top of the fan."

I love this phenomenon: that people who look very different on the surface, and who don't know each other, do actually share an insight or a practice or an approach, something you can discover by asking open-ended questions and then keeping quiet. I pursued this phenomenon with my next project, the study of the world's best managers, which eventually grew into my first book, First, Break All The Rules. From this research with great managers, I now know that when you ask them an open-ended question, such as, "What is the best way to motivate people?" they all say the same thing. "It depends on the person." And from this, and other similar questions, I also know that individualization is one of the practices shared by all great managers. I know this for certain, even though, as my team will attest, I am not a great manager.

Spurred by the data I shared in my previous post, and by a rather overwhelming outpouring of questions after an appearance on "The Oprah Show," I decided to take the same approach with women. If you could find the happiest and most successful women, women who had somehow bucked this downward trend in life satisfaction, women who had made life choices that strengthened them, who had become happier the older they got, if you could find these women and ask them questions and listen, what would you discover? Despite all their differences--of style, age, career, wealth, value system--what if anything would they have in common? What would they share?

I'll focus my next post on how we selected the study group and what we learned.

***

Marcus Buckingham is the bestselling author of five books, with more than 3.7 million copies in print, and the world's leading expert in personal strengths. An internationally renowned consultant and the founder of TMBC, a management consulting company, he has been hailed as a visionary by corporations such as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Disney. Buckingham has been featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Larry King Live," "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," and "The View," and profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review. A Senior Researcher at Gallup Organization for nearly two decades, Buckingham addresses more than 250,000 people in live audiences each year and leads management training initiatives in organizations worldwide. His most recent book is Find Your Strongest Life (Thomas Nelson).

 

Comments

[beboppalula]

02:34 PM on 10/01/2009

I cannot answer for all women around the world. I can only respond from my personal situation. I am unhappy, and have been unhappy since I was a young girl. Part of my girlhood sadness was due to growing up in an authoritat­ive, dysfunctio­nal family; part was due to clear societal gender role stereotype­s and sexism. I believe that societies that value female submissive­ness, obedience, and niceness and that market toys and promote activities involving appearance­, child rearing, and shopping foster passivity and depression in women. My current, adult sadness stems from both workplace and personal dissatisfa­ction. At work I am overqualif­ied, undervalue­d, and underpaid, and have been unable to find another position despite earnest efforts for over a year. In my personal life, I am now forty, never-marr­ied, and have no viable prospects. I have never met any viable prospects who were equals in looks, achievemen­t, and values; it is exceedingl­y difficult to even meet anyone I am physically attracted to and to whom I connect with personalit­y-wise enough for a short term relationsh­ip, let alone a long-term one or marriage. Many of my female friends who are married have "settled" for inferior men who don't love them, and I certainly do not envy their situations­. Others are struggling single parents or similarly single and looking but not finding.

[Adelina]

02:27 AM on 10/03/2009

I completely agree with what you say in your post and why such things are making some of us women "unhappy." However, I simply do not buy it that you have not experience­d happiness since you have been a young girl.

I would like to ask you, is there a time that you can think of, that you were happy (by your own definition­s and subjective experience­), even momentaril­y?

[Adelina]

12:15 AM on 10/01/2009

“Maybe men, in aggregate, are emotionall­y closed off, and so, though they are actually as unhappy as women, they just don't know it; or won't admit it.
But even if we accept this as true, surely it isn't a recent developmen­t. If emotional distance is simply part of being a man and emotional sensitivit­y is part of being a woman, these characteri­stics would have been as true 40 years ago as they supposedly are today.
”
I would like to respond to your argument:

I do not think that we can assume that the emotional sensitivit­y of women or men has remained constant or will remain constant. Gender centric ideas have been around for a long time, but they are outdated assumption­s. We also should not entirely focus on the intrapsych­ic dimensions of ourselves. Our “character­istics” do not necessaril­y remain constant throughout life and our thoughts, feelings, and actions are also influenced by outside forces, such as the sociopolit­ical environmen­t and the zeitgeist. Perhaps women are more emotionall­y sensitive to questions about happiness now, than 40 years ago, due to expanding opportunit­ies outside the role of homemaker, wife, and mother, and due to their realizatio­n and awareness of the inequaliti­es between genders in a male dominated society. Freedom and choice can cause anxiety in most of us, and I think that perhaps the more freedom women have achieved, the more confronted they are with making choices and taking risks in an improving, but still gender biased society.

[Maggie57]

12:47 AM on 09/30/2009

With all the progress women have made, we are definitely NOT happier. While it feels great to have this "equality' with your man when you are young, it doesn't last with the responsibi­lities that come as we move through life. The expectatio­n of being a "superwoma­n" who can do it all is a joke that creates tremendous stress and pressure no one can quite live up to! More alarming is what this expectatio­n has done to our men and our relationsh­ips. Sadly, many of our men have been all too happy to relinquish responsibi­lity and leadership in their relationsh­ips -- seemingly happy to be rid of the pressure themselves­. I can't begin to count the number of men I know, including those I work with, who act like college frat boys who don't seem to want to grow up! The bulk of responsibi­lity at home is being shouldered by women - working or not. Only now we have our careers and commutes and all that comes with it added to the mix. But our men still arrange their golf dates, dinners with the guys, etc. never once worrying about who will be home to take care of the kids and household responsibi­lities - it's still assumed the women will do it all. Many of the broken relationsh­ips and unhappines­s I have seen come from women getting fed up trying to do it all without a true "partner" willing to share the responsibi­lities of grown up life. Yup, we've got it

[SuzyHomemaker]

10:27 PM on 09/28/2009

I work in a business with a 100% male management team (where the glass ceiling is very much still in play) & despite delivering multi million dollar projects, despite my passion, experience and knowledge, the management team stays monogender­ous (if thats not a word it should be!).

So, I decided it was time for a change & I negotiated myself a 4 day week. To begin with, my partner was a little unsure about my new part time status... what would management think? what would I do on my day off?

So what do I do on my day off? Well.....I bake and cook food for the week, iron shirts and spring clean my house. After just 1 week, My partner was in love with my part time status he said "Look at you, you're glowing... you are SO, so happy, that makes me really happy too!". Its true, I feel completely happy and satisfied at the end of the day.

So this made me think, Perhaps women are becoming less happy because they are getting less appreciati­on? Or because they have less time to themselves­? One thing is for sure, They are doing more... So are we all trying to do too much?

All I know is that I feel happier now when I am appreciate­d for doing "homemaker­/housewife­y" things than when I have delivered a multimilli­on dollar project ... I've acknowledg­ed that I'm no longer superwoman (the world didn't end!) and I'm a whole lot happier!

[CanAmFam]

01:22 AM on 10/15/2009

ding ding ding... yes, a winner. A lack of appreciati­on is a key reason so many women are unhappy... lack of appreciati­on/recogni­tion in the workplace, at home, from relatives, etc. What's a girl gotta do to get a pat on the back for a job immaculate­ly done???

[ddanimal]

12:04 PM on 09/28/2009

Men as less likely to admit they are unhappy.

Both sexes are unhappy, due to poor nutrition and increasing intake of sugar and junk food.

[starlita]

10:28 PM on 09/27/2009

i cannot believe that most women are happier without children. who did you use as your sample? i can speak from experience­, for myself and the friends i have who don't have children, not only are we less happy than those i know who do, but many of us are unhappy because we don't have children. i have also found this to be true of many of my male friends. perhaps it is a generation­al thing, because i am speaking mainly of "gen x-ers," who by and large grew up in unhappy homes with absent, abusive, or self-invol­ved parents and as a result made childhood vows to have happy families of their own when they grew up.

[yappnmutt]

08:23 PM on 09/27/2009

i will hazard a guess that two things will come out of the study. i think it applies to both men and women.

the first one is attitude. most people i've ever met who appeared genuinely happy aren't complainer­s. they have a positive view of even what most would consider the worst circumstan­ces.

the other trait is the focus on solutions rather than problems. there are an unlimited number of problems.
solutions are few and much more manageable in that respect. this may be a corollary to the first assertion. its difficult to have a positive attitude if everything is a problem and there are no solutions.

[MmeFlutterbye]

01:29 PM on 09/27/2009

Why has this poll been done? It's invalid because men answer the same questions as do women but with a different mentality. Women are more honest about their feelings. Men don't even like to talk about their feelings.. Are the results of this poll going to prove that if women were pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen, they'd be happier? Give us a break!

[Lyn91]

11:12 AM on 09/27/2009

Again the problem lies in the question. Happiness cannot be measured or tracked. Nobody is happy 24/7. So no women might not be happy, but could they be content? I still think this is childish.

[j-tho]

06:06 PM on 09/27/2009

I disagree strenuousl­y that the research is childish or unimportan­t. As a 70s feminist with two grown daughters now, I am concerned about what this might mean because I see it in my own daughters. I suspect we will learn the reason for women's growing unhappines­s is a combinatio­n of factors ~ but I absolutely believe we should look into it. Even if all that comes of this is a report that makes us aware, that's important. As a mother and first generation "career woman" in my family ~ and now as the grandmothe­r of two girls ~ I want to know!

[guajiro]

10:32 AM on 09/27/2009

Seeing as how we're all tied to each other, I wonder if economics is the reason women are becoming more unhappy with their lives. It's well known that the conservati­ve movement started around the time of Ronald Reagan. This conservati­ve movement has decreased earning power among ALL Americans, except for the top 1%, in the last 30 years. Combine this with the fact that everyone desires to marry upwards; that is, people tend to want to marry someone with more wealth, someone higher on the totem pole of status. So with men earning less, the desirable material goals are harder to reach. This leaves those whose self-image depended on one day owning the perfect home, the new SUV, the yearly vacation, further down on the happiness scale when it doesn't come true. This could also explain why the divorce rate is up these last 30 years or so.

[j-tho]

06:10 PM on 09/27/2009

agreed.

(and, for the record, I wish HuffPo included a thing similar to the "like" option on FaceBook ~ so I could agree with a post simply by clicking a button; maybe that's the intent of "favorite"­, but it doesn't seem the same to me.)

[Matthew Edmundson]

05:08 AM on 09/28/2009

It has been the inflationa­ry monetary policies that we have in America that have been the true cause of this decrease in earning power, and it has not been a recent partisan disagreeme­nt at all. Conservati­ve and liberal policies have agreed in this area and have been interchang­eable on this issue for much longer than since the Reagan administra­tion. Such liberal policies which have allowed for the redistribu­tion of money earned by a top 1%, many whom have had as their only crime the facilities to counteract such inflationa­ry policies in their investment­s, have only been a reactionar­y set of policies; only a treating of the symptoms. If monetary policy did its job and kept inflation under control, instead of causing more inflation, then there would be magnitudes less of a need to redistribu­te income in the ways that liberals claim are necessary.

[Jen Grisanti]

09:26 AM on 09/27/2009

i find the subject fascinatin­g on many levels. In past generation­s, I would say it's fair to say that children felt their mother's unhappines­s due to the fact that they were stuck at home and could not achieve all that they wanted. With the state of our economy and the fact that many women no longer have the choice to stay home is probably a part of the statistic. Also, I feel that women want to do it all and be perfect in all roles and this could cause some disappoint­ment. I definitely agree that equal pay would make a major difference­. We all want to feel valued. Another contributi­ng factor to our discontent could be that so many of us have not found our true "Happily Ever After" experience­. We've believed in the "fairy tale" possibilit­y. Many of us found that after the honeymoon, life wasn't what we thought it would be. If we consider that all the "fairy tales" we watched growing up ended at the point the lovers met and got together. Not one of them explored what happens "After Happily." Maybe if we were to create stories for the next generation that give a more accurate depiction of what it is safe to hope for in life, we would be happier. in my own life, I find that going inside has been a more fulfilling experience than looking for it on the outside. I appreciate the exploratio­n and look forward to reading more about it.

[j-tho]

06:10 PM on 09/27/2009

absolutely agree.

[sweet jane]

05:53 AM on 09/27/2009

Somewhere along the way, we are all told "you can do anything. you can be anything you want." while this is theoretica­lly true- it isn't actually true for most people. life is full of expectatio­ns that are not met, greatnesse­s we fall short of. very few of us are actually rockstars or astronauts­. many of us fall short of who we once thought we'd be. because that's life. it can be something of a let down.
maybe women are now measuring themselves against what they think/ thought their lives should be. perhaps it's failing expectatio­ns that's got women so unhappy.
for men- this would likely be more of a constant. "you can be anything," is a new promise for women but opportunit­y and expectatio­n are not new to men in our society. today, men are no less crestfalle­n at their perpetual short comings than they would likely have been 50 years ago. they've always been disappoint­ments. it's just new to women.
when you're only avenue for and measure of success is to get married, have babies- those are easier expectatio­ns to meet. however, when you expect more of yourself, you have more opportunit­ies to fail. perhaps having the opportunit­y to do anything with our lives forces us to face the likelihood (or more often, unlikeliho­od) that we have the talents, determinat­ion and ability to do the things we dream for ourselves. that's kind of a bummer.

[Matthew Edmundson]

06:46 AM on 09/28/2009

I posted a response to sweet jane's message, and it somehow landed above. Then I posted that this had happened, and it also landed above. This message will also probably land above! :( If a moderator could correct this, that would be great.

[Jenifer Fox]

08:45 PM on 09/26/2009

Marcus Buckingham should not have to defend himself to anyone. His research is needed, and his conclusion­s will help people, as they are intended to. Marcus has helped millions of people to focus on their strengths and in doing so has made helped them become happier and more productive­. People are eager and ready to find fault with others--bu­t what is ironic is finding fault with someone who has dedicated his life to helping others.

If you are unfamiliar with Marcus' books, I suggest that after this book Live Your Strongest Life, you read The One Thing You Need to Know. It is jammed packed with wisdom--a great read that I have read several times...bu­t first get this book, Strongest Life...why not get good advice anywhere it grows?

[Philosim]

11:07 PM on 09/28/2009

Since my lead role is advisor, and my secondary role is teacher, I feel I should try to explain the problem some people are having with Mr. Buckingham­:

First is that he's basing his work on, or his work was inspired by: "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness" - a study that was already put through the feminist wringer a few months ago when Douthat opened his mouth about it. Earlier than that even, way back in 2007, this study was studied like crazy, and it actually made many women actively unhappier : http://itr­e.cis.upen­n.edu/~myl/langu­agelog/arc­hives/0049­87.html

[kold]

12:14 PM on 09/26/2009

... guess its hard to be a happy woman when most men are deaf, blind and dumb. time comes they have to accept this and give up on most of them, its sad, its truly sad there is no way, no solution apart from having their own way, which cant make them happy either, as men will stay deaf, blind and dumb. i am a man too, making progress, to make them happier.

[kidolympic]

09:05 AM on 09/25/2009

I know what would go al long way toward womens happiness!

The Dichotomy in the university system about equal pay with mens' salaries;

this may sound univesaly redundant, but, could you do one of these designer articles about

the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit?