Women's reported wellbeing in rich countries fell relative to men's over the decades in which their opportunities expanded.
Stevenson and Wolfers reported it in 2009 across American and European surveys. Women had reported higher subjective wellbeing than men in the 1970s and reported the same or less by the 2000s, while measures of opportunity moved the other way. The explanations divide between real changes, such as the combined load of paid and domestic work, and measurement, since widening options change what a respondent compares herself with and how she reads the scale.
In practice
- A survey that asks how satisfied people are tracks the expectations behind the answer as much as the conditions in front of it.
- A workplace measures morale before and after a reform and cannot separate improvement from a raised standard.
- Possible explanations
- Candidate explanations are real changes in the combined load of paid and domestic work, and measurement, since widening options change what respondents compare themselves with and how they read the scale.
- In its favour
- The pattern was found across several independent survey series in the United States and Europe, using consistent measures over three decades.
- Against it
- The trend is small, sensitive to which surveys are used, and several later analyses find it flat or reversed, so the paradox may be an artefact of scale use rather than a change in wellbeing.
- Standing
- Contested. The trend is small, sensitive to which surveys are used, and several later analyses find it flat or reversed. Compare Tocqueville's paradox, where improving conditions raise discontent.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- The measured patterns of social life