Women, Men, and Happiness: We're All in Transition

We're all talking about the Huffington Post column in which Marcus Buckingham dropped two pieces of disheartening news: "a) women are less happy than they were 40 years ago, compared with men, and b) as women get older, they get sadder." Using data over time from the General Social Survey as well as five other international studies, the study Buckingham cites, by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, indicates that women's subjective happiness is lessening as men's happiness is increasing.

In a New York Times column responding to Buckingham's piece, Maureen Dowd asks, "the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?" It is tempting to interpret Stevenson and Wolfers' data as fodder for the popular argument that feminism and the Women's Movement of the 1960s and 1970s somehow betrayed today's women. But when we look at 30 years of workforce data, we see gender roles are still truly in transition, and more so, it seems, with each passing year. This transition breeds disequilibrium as women gain more responsibility to contribute to family income while retaining the major share of family work responsibilities. Men are changing too, and reporting their fair share of stress. Like most things, the picture is complex.

Looking at the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, an ongoing nationally representative study of over 2800 wage and salaried employees in the United States, Families and Work Institute (FWI) has conducted in 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2008, and which began in 1977 with a Department of Labor study, several important data points stand out. For the first time since 1992, young women and young men (age 29 and under) don't differ in their desire for jobs with more responsibility. What's more, there is no difference between young women with and without children in their desire for more job responsibility.

Families are also under greater economic pressure, and women have played an increasingly important role in addressing--and for many families--easing this pressure. Women are now in the workforce in virtually equal numbers as men, a trend bolstered by the current recession that has cost more men their jobs than women. Four out of five couples are dual-earner couples today, and women in dual-earner couples contribute about 44% of the family income on average, up from 39% in 1977. In fact, one in four women (26%) now earn 10% or more than their husbands, up from 15% in 1997. The average hours worked per week in all jobs has increased for women, but not for men. Women worked significantly more hours in 2008 than in 1977 (40 hours and 43 hours, respectively) -- while the average work hours per week in all jobs has not changed significantly for men (48 hours in both years).

We find that the percentage of employees experiencing some or a lot of work-life conflict has increased significantly--from 34% in 1977 to 44% in 2008, and men report the most change. In his piece, Buckingham includes FWI data, noting "men's work-life conflict has increased significantly from 34% in 1977 to 45% in 2008, while women's work-life conflict has risen less dramatically and not significantly from 34% to 39%." So while women's happiness is decreasing, so too is men's work and family conflict.

Gender roles at home are changing too. Over the past three decades, mom's time with children under 13 has remained the same -- 3.8 hours on work days, while dad's time has increased from 2 hours to 3 hours. However, as Joan Williams points out on this site, married women still do much more housework than men do (17 hours a week, compared with men's 13, according to a University of Michigan study.) But here, too there is major change; the average married man only did 6 hours in 1976. FWI finds that since 1992, the number of men who take as much or more responsibility for children has risen 10% and that's according to women (from 21% to 31%)!

As we see, data from just the past decade tell the story of of a transition into new gender roles for both men and women. Even as women gain more responsibility at work, their responsibilities at home remain significant. The strong increase in men's self-reported work-life conflict speaks volumes about the huge role shift men are undergoing: from sole breadwinners with little responsibility for child rearing, to dual-earners who are and want to be more involved in family life.

This huge societal shift brought about by women's move into the workforce has only begun to play out. It impacts many areas of our lives, and its consequences are complex indeed. When we tell the story, we do a disservice to all of us if we only focus on either women (or men).

Follow Morra Aarons-Mele on Twitter: www.twitter.com/morra_am

Comments

[bcmigal]

I can only comment from personal observations. In most professions, older men are seen as experienced, seasoned, and intelligent. Older women, on the other hand, are referred to as the "older ladies". If men are widowed or divorced, they quickly remarry and build new lives. Women (esp older women) stay single and are often the sole breadwinners. In my own case, my husband got away scott free from a marriage and a family, He married a wealthy older woman and is now retired and playing golf everyday. On the other hand, I raised 2 teenagers (one with special needs, another now in college) without child support. I work more than a 40 hour week with no possibility of retirement in site.
So am i happier? The answer to that would be no.

[Retrofuturistic]

Trying to work full time and raise children is excruciatingly difficult, for the woman only, and because it's so hard for her, it causes resentment when she is doing all the work all day and all night and the man continues his free life.

[IrishMale]

This actually makes a lot of sense. It's great for women to have choices and that the power balance is leveling out, but really, whether you're a man or a woman wouldn't you rather be at home with your family than slaving away in your cubicle?

My wife and I share breadwinning and family responsibilities equally, but the shift is definitely in my favour. I'd much rather do more house chores than face the expectation of bringing home both my income and hers. Although she doesn't seem to be unhappy at all...I told her to wait until her forties and showed her the sliding graph!! She didn't take that well....

[Morra Aarons-Mele - Huffpost Blogger]

IrishMale, it's good to hear that you feel it's fair you and your wife are sharing breadwinning duties and breadwinning stress.

You can't have one without the other, eh?

[OldLadyThoughts]

Let me see. . . why am I not as happy now as I was at 25?

None of the social goals that I hoped would be reached by this time have been reached; in fact, we've been backsliding

War is not the answer. . . seems to have been forgotten

Two plus bubbles have cost me large portions of my retirement fund

While I grew up in a growth economy, my children are struggling to make livings

I found that corporate America is still mostly a good-old-boy club and brutally political

I could go on.

[mcyina]

Each person or family needs to do what works best for them, whether one or both parent work, each need to spend quality time with their children and with each other.

When it comes to being happy we must all look within, priorities, ask for help and put and end to the unattainable goals we set for ourselves.

[HarrietandBlahBlahNyborg]

"...the past decade tell the story of of a transition into new gender roles for both men and women."

Really? Nothing in this article shows any "new" gender roles, merely an evolution of the pre-existing gender roles. So women went from working this much in the 1970s to this much in the 2000s. And men were this much involved with the kids, now they're this much involved. OK. Isn't this just the predictable continuation of a trend that began 40 years ago? Nothing new here. And more importantly, it doesn't explain anything pertaining to happiness in people's lives or the lack thereof.

[GPatton]

In the 1960s a group of rich, suburban malcontents got all fired up by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, a very priviledged twosome, and prompted changes in social, particularly workplace arrangements. Of couse they didn't give a good goddamn that the patriarchal, one breadwinner, middle class American family was a Godsend for women who in more primitive times and societies were treated no better than beasts of burden, for the most part. Now that we're in a controlled depression, men are losing their jobs much faster than women. Looks like we've come full circle to the one breadwinner family. Only this time it's women who are bringing home the bacon. No jobs for men, particularly older men. (And high priced men lawyers and investment banksters are a very small minority.) As Yoko Ono said "Woman is the (you know what) of the world!" She thought she was protesting something. But for components of the social strata from which she came, she was being prophetic! George Patton

[research]

Men are supposed to be happy, it is a sign of weakness, and a turnoff to women for a man to admit unhappiness.

So I would guess men ans women are similarly unhappy.

Let's not let Ourselves be divided in the face of a world wide Plutocratic dominance

Perhaps the real problems men and women really face, are making all of us unhappy. Perhaps having corporatist dominate the 99.9% rest of us serfs is causing unhappiness.

Let's stick together to bring back democracy to the USA.

[Mortifyd]

I'm glad to see that men aren't being entirely tossed out of the conversation.

[JuniperSunshine]

How long do we need before a "transition" is called a "disaster"? 30 years? 50? 100? Or will a society that is not working for it's members always be referred to as "in a transition"?

Remember the "growing pains" of Communist China? Or the "transition" in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge? Extreme examples, to be sure, but I'm wondering precisely what the difference between "social experiment with terrible side effects" and "society in transition" really IS?

[Morra Aarons-Mele - Huffpost Blogger]

Your comment in really giving me pause, JuniperSunshine.

[JuniperSunshine]

HuffPost's Pick

So, to sum up, since the Feminists pushed to encourage mothers to work full time:

1. Women are very unhappy
2. Men are slightly unhappy
3. Children are unhappy

But yet, we keep hearing that squeezing family life into the edges of a busy, hectic schedule is necessary. This is called "progress". Not only that, the days of parents raising their own children, which has worked for 2 million years, will never happen again. I'd call our society a massive experiment in prioritizing income over children, not a "transition". Hopefully we can come out of it with not just a respect for the choices of individual men and women - the best part of Feminism - , but with an better understanding of what really makes us happy in life.

[darquelourd]

Hey it was economics NOT feminism that caused the need for two income households. The Feminist movement just happened to coincide with THAT economic transition in the post Vietnam era.

It's odd that people talk about bringing freedom to Iraqis or Iranians as though that is GOOD freedom while allowing women in this country more freedom of CHOICE and OPPORTUNITY is somehow BAD.

Things happen. Stuff changes. There are consequences. Deal with it.

[memosyne]

I'm now 70 years old so I was there: the unfunded war in Vietnam caused high inflation.
Nixon imposed price controls.
Then in l973 the OPEC oil cartel raised energy prices significantly. The nixon price controls evaporated.
Women went to work because with such high inflation, one paycheck would not support their families.

Choice is good but most working women went to work so they could help pay the mortgage and feed their kids.

The other factor was no-fault divorce: hubby wants a younger woman: divorced woman has to go to work. No choice there.

Here in Maine, many women are willing to work in a corporate desk job with family health benefits so their logger-fac­tory-worke­r husbands and children can have health insurance.

[skullman]

Are women victims of their own sometimes unrealistic expectations? Is some of this unhappiness self imposed because of these unrealistic expectations? Certain things have to be done, others can be modified, or delayed. Life is a balancing act with constant trade offs. I've known women who can't go to bed if there are a few dishes in the sink, or who won't put off vacuuming until tomorrow even though it could wait. I say, read that story to your kid, and help the kids with their homework, because the kid can't wait, but the dishes can.

[dadw5boys]

Please address why women are more important to the family income.

So the family can buy more ?

Few have 401k or 403 plans.
Few have investments.
They have been spending it all as fast as they can earn it.
Turn off the TV and stop the maddness of keeping up with fashion and the Jones; LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER.

[Rick Murray]

Hey Morra -- Really nice, thoughtful post. Cheers, RWM

[Morra Aarons-Mele - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks so much Rick! Cheers back at you.

[Indra]

Yes, it is a complex issue. There are so many issues involved. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.