BACK in the golden age of polyester flare slacks and burnt orange shag carpeting, women were more likely than men to report themselves "very happy." No longer: women's happiness advantage has gone the way of decorative macrame owls. As the New York Times reports today, separate studies by economists Alan Krueger, and Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers reveal a flip flop in who's happiest.
The obvious explanation—that men, who used to relish their weekly stress-induced heart attacks, have become sissified by a shallow therapeutic culture and now grin shamefully while shaving their chests, whereas the stock of giddily gin- and valium-soaked housewives spared the terrible anxieties of overrated opportunity has rapidly dwindled—is strangely neglected. Instead, we are offered responsible social sciencce:
Mr. Krueger, analyzing time-use studies over the last four decades, has found an even starker pattern. Since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back on activities they find unpleasant. They now work less and relax more.
Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past. Forty years ago, a typical woman spent about 23 hours a week in an activity considered unpleasant, or 40 more minutes than a typical man. Today, with men working less, the gap is 90 minutes.
I think the various commentators in the Times article have the diagnosis largely right. With improved equity in opportunity, women's expectations for themselves have risen, which makes it harder to meet them. A good part of this is also vestigial sexist expectations about women as homemakers and caretakers. But it is also the case that, as Alex Tabarrok puts it in his post on the subject, "opportunity brings opportunity cost." Increased opportunity is good, but it is not surprising if there is some lag in the development of the art of managing new tradeoffs.
As far as prescription goes, the Times' David Leonhardt offers a whopping dollop of government: universal preschool and state-mandated paid parental leave. Perhaps there is data showing these policies makes women happier, though he offers none, and I am aware of none.
Alternatively, Mr Tabarrok's highly accomplished wife advises that women "just get over it"—"it" being the double bind of feeling guilty about neglecting hearth and home when on the job and about neglecting the job when attending to hearth and home. This is sage advice. I will never gainsay the importance of individuals taking responsibility for their choices, and it is often open to us (more often than we think) to choose whether we will conform to or resist social expectations.
However, resisting a social expectation—whether it is rooted in gender norms or consumption norms—is easier the weaker the expectation. If an expectation is unfair, it may be incumbent upon us, as a matter of justice, to help those who wish to buck it by making it easier to buck. Telling women to "get over it" doesn't mean that we shouldn't also strongly and repeatedly reinforce the point that women should not have to do so much of the unpleasant domestic and child- and parent-care work. It seems to me our culture remains awash in quasi-Victorian super-sentimenal romanticism about the mother-child bond, which makes women feel guilty if they approach childrearing with the same sort of genial detachment of even attentive, involved, and loving dads. Surely many men ought to do more of this work. But I think men doing more is less important than women doing less. Neither women nor men ought not be made to feel guilty if they outsource this work to daycare, nannies, or assisted-living facilities.
The happiness studies show that men now spend less time unpleasantly occupied than they used to. That's good! Our focus should not be on the equitible distribution of unpleasantness, but on an overall reduction. The best path is cultural change that lowers to women the cost of opting out of unfair social expectations—expectations that lead them to spend too much of their time devoted to unpleasant acts of altruism.
And with that I resign my aspirations to become an advisor to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.
