This just in: Men are as miserable as women. At least that's what we learn from a new study by Arizona State professor Chris M. Herbst, who suggests that men's happiness has taken as big a dive as women's over the past several years.
We think that's good news.
Back in 2009, Penn economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers published ground-breaking research that sent the interwebs atwitter. Titled "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness" the study found that while, 35 years ago or so, women reported being happier than men, today women-regardless of marital or employment status or whether or not they have kids-report being unhappier than men.
At which point, the pundits swarmed: Was the women's movement -- responsible for ushering women out of the kitchen and into the workplace -- to blame for this happiness gap? Were women themselves at fault for not taking proper care of themselves? There must be something wrong with you if you're not happy, the media howled. Blame yourself! Blame feminism! Blame your choices! Whatever you do, don't assume it's the rational response to life itself or to a workplace that has not changed to accommodate the new reality: though women represent close to half of the workforce, the workplace still operates like a set from Mad Menas if the ideal employee is one with Betty Draper at home to take care of business.
Back to Herbst's study: Not content to let women own their own funk, he used a different measure of well-being -- happiness is notoriously hard to measure, if not define -- to find that men's life satisfaction had not only declined as much as women's over the past two decades, but had gone south even more rapidly than women's in recent years:
Men and women have also experienced comparable slippages in self-confidence, growing regrets about the past, and declines in virtually every measure of self-reported health. In a further departure from [Stevenson and Wolfers] results, I find that although the downward trend in life satisfaction became less severe for men and women over time, the slowdown occurred more aggressively among women. As a result, men's life satisfaction began to fall more precipitously than that for women beginning in the late-1980s.
He suggests the reason may be a combination of several factors based on the erosion in social and civic engagement -- coupled with economic insecurity.
Maybe so, but we think there's something else at play. Because we're optimists, we tend to think that all of this declining happiness business may be a sign of something positive: gender roles are shifting, and we -- men and women alike -- are working through the growing pains. As men begin to share more of the second shift in our dual-career families, are they also sharing more of the angst? And will that lead to positive change?
A new study out of the Families and Work Institute seems to suggest yes. According to "The New Male Mystique," released last month, as gender roles have begun to shift -- men's stress over work-and-family conflict has increased. Last year, we interviewed Ellen Galinsky, President of the Institute and an author of the report, for our book and she told us that preliminary data on increasing stress levels among men suggested that the idea of work-life fit might move out of the pink ghetto and start being framed as change that benefits all of us.
Some might snipe that it's time already that men feel the conflict too. But Galinsky believes that, as the generation of men who are (or who expect to be) more involved at home climb the ranks, they're likely to be more amenable to family-friendly policies. She said her studies find that when supervisors -- regardless of age or gender -- have responsibilities for kids or elders, they are seen as more supportive of work-life policies, because, said Galinsky, "when you go through it yourself, typically you feel different about it.
What's more, she told us, when men as well as women leave work to pick up kids -- or if dad does the drop-off at the onsite daycare center -- the stigma, and that maternal wall, starts to go away. "In an ideal world," Galinsky said, "work would work for you and your employer, and there are some policies that would help you do that, but where the rubber hits the road is how your supervisor and coworkers treat you. You can work at a company that has fantastic policies, or live in a country that has fantastic policies, and you can still have a horrible situation. There has to be a culture where people value personal and family time."
All of which goes to the heart of what's often left out of studies of satisfaction and well-being: what has been dubbed a personal issue is really a political one. Maybe instead of kvetching about who's happier than whom, what we ought to be talking about is changes in workplace structures and public policy.
And wouldn't that just make all of us just a little bit more, you know, happy?
Follow Barbara & Shannon Kelley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@undecidedbook
are reduced...................women are in workforce so labor force has grown larger (work force
pariticpation rate).....................and the Global Economy means old Neighborhood type lifestyle
has gone ! In short Marriage has become two people wanting to come home to a WIFE !
So Marriage is really just a fading institution which was created for rearing Children, it is
not doing well under STRESS.....................maybe a time to revise our view of Marriage and
how it could be changed to make people Happier ? I really think Marriage should be a 5 year
LEASE with Options for Renewal ? Birthrate of Western Nations has fallen also ! Seems like
Companies who used to grow in USA not grow somewhere else so best Jobs are in other
Nations and Cultures ! Not a good time for America and Romantic Relationships !
Workplace structure and public policy? Since when are those the sources of happiness?
Men are increasingly unhappy because they are increasingly berated on every hand simply for being men.
Women are unhappy because they have been brainwashed into believing they will be happy if they can be like men, and because today's men - having been reared by single women - have no idea how to be manly.
But they won't climb the ranks. They'll be passed over in favor of men AND women who either don't have children or aren't involved in the home. What we're witnessing here isn't evolution toward more kid-friendly work environments -- what we're really seeing is that gender is no longer determinant of who is involved in the home and who isn't. Professionals who try to be involved in their kids' lives will still be disadvantaged in the workplace and still miserable. It's just that they aren't exclusively women anymore, and the ones leapfrogging over them in the workplace aren't exclusively men.
There was about two hundred years in America when a man and woman could count on each others love and support, raise a family together and enjoy retirement and grandchildren.
That time is over... radical feminism killed it.
Instead, we have pressurized people in dead-end service sector jobs. Traffic jams on steroids, and an Orwellian world brought to you by homeland security.
Ironically, Reaganomics, that changed the ships course for everyone, is still the order of the day.
Greed Is Good, Afterall
Right on. And let's not forget LBJ, who introduced endless warfare and social entitlement.
Johnson and Reagan, a one-two punch the US will never recover from....
A lot of men on the Internet seem to have a real chip on their shoulders and believe 1) women hate men, 2) women are trying to emasculate men, 3) women are just trying to get money from men, 4) women try to take advantage in divorce, etc.
It's the false belief of superiority of one gender over another by virtue of them just saying so and believing it. Men have always thought that what they do in this world is more important than anything women might do, including producing the human race and then caring for it.
So, anyone who questions that 'superiority' is usually viciously attacked by insecure misogynists. They are threatened by anyone with enough self-respect to shake up their delusional world. They are also the crowd who believes that just because women have always been treated like second-class humans, they obviously deserve it. They forget the centuries of harsh laws and religion that put them on par with slaves.
To answers the questions in your post, the following may be of interest to you:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/
Men should not be muzzled because women or men who favor them assume they are perfect thus presuming men are the root of all evil. Those attitudes are a product of female chauvinism and misandry. A honest discussion between the genders embraces our common flawed human nature and encourages equality not dominance by one gender over the other. You should have as much respect for male voices as you do those of women. I really don't think you have embraced equality in both directions.
Actually, since men's suicide rate has been steadily 400% that of women's for decades, I'd say our happiness in comparison tanked a long time ago. Good news apparently.
Women- Wring hands over your "choices", complain about how difficult it is to be a woman and how awful men are.
Don't recall Father Youngboys preaching such stuff either. We reap what we sow.
We think that's good news."
Charming, ladies!!
Men. Never ever ever get married.
That aside, although I know not all fathers/husbands are as active in their children’s lives equal participants in the home, there does seem to be an over emphases on those who are not and there most def. seems to be an eagerness to cast the shadow of those men upon all fathers/husbands. There is a lot going on in the world with a sour economy/multiple wars/mortgages/health care/ college/retirement/maintaining structural integrity of home/vehicles/perimeter security/concerns of predators/violence against children/women are but a few of the things that concern me as a father/husband/individual-realities for most today.
The whole gender war/power struggle between the sexes got old a long time ago and there are more than a few on both sides who need to pull their heads out when it comes to antagonizing, provoking, and reveling in the struggles of the opposite gender. As nation/planet, I see tougher times ahead for all, both genders, all people.
-------
That same article notes:
Census officials define Americans as poor when family income falls below thresholds linked to family size. In 2009, a family of four was "poor" if annual cash income fell below $21,954.
Now, what do you suppose is more likely: that poor people are able to get air conditioning, an X-Box, and the like on that pittance...or that we've had an increase in poverty levels?
The nation's poverty rate jumped to 14.3% in 2009, its highest level since 1994, and the 43.6 million Americans in need is the highest number in 51 years of record-keeping, the government said Thursday.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/news/economy/Census_poverty_rate/index.htm
And:
Over the past 50 years, televisions have gotten a lot cheaper and college has gotten a lot more expensive. Consequently, even a low income person can reliably obtain a level of television-based entertainment that would blow the mind of a millionaire from 1961. At the same time, if you're looking to live in a safe neighborhood with good public schools in a metropolitan area with decent job opportunities you're going to find that this is quite expensive. Health care has become incredibly expensive.
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/19/272511/poverty-is-mostly-about-housing-health-care-and-education/
Is it any wonder that under the sick uncompassionate system that passes for what we call American civilization, people are unhappy?
Western Europeans report far more happiness and satisfaction with life than Americans. My European relatives get six to eight weeks annual paid vacation. They have free and excellent universal health care. Child care is available. Social services are excellent. Public transportation is excellent. Their societies spend little on militaries and a lot on health, education and welfare. Is it any wonder that Western Europeans are happier than stressed-out competitive Americans?