Why are women unhappier than men? What can we do to move the needle? And is it better to be happy or to be good?
In 40 years, I'm going to start a podcast and rip you a new one.
I'm Angela Duckworth.
I'm Steven Dubner, and you're listening to.
No stupid questions today on the show.
Why are women's happiness levels so much lower than men's?
I, as a woman, was like, what?
Angie?
There is a new working paper out by the economists David Blanchflower and Alex Bryson about what's been called the female happiness paradox.
Are you familiar with the female happiness paradox?
I saw that paper, but I had to say, prior to that paper, I had never heard of the female happiness paradox.
It makes for a good title, though.
It may be a little spicier than it is accurate.
But here's how they define the paradox.
It's the notion that women are happier than men in happiness equations, but also more unhappy than men in unhappiness equations.
And we should say David Blanchlauer and I believe Alex Bryson, but especially David Blanchlauer, has been working on happiness measures for many, many years.
And what this new paper argues, in a nutshell is that the paradox that we just defined doesn't actually exist and that it's an artifact of poor measurement.
Now, I'm guessing this finding that the happiness paradox isn't real will not be of interest to most people, probably just other happiness researchers.
But there's another finding in the paper which I think will be interesting to many people, which is that women are, on average, demonstrably unhappier than men.
And we should say that has not always been the case, or at least the gap has not always been anywhere near as wide as it is now.
So the question I want to ask you is this.