Abstract
According to the gender life satisfaction/depression paradox women are significantly more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction than men after controlling for all relevant socio-demographic factors, but also significantly more likely to declare they are depressed. We find that the paradox holds in the cross-country sample of the European Social Survey and is stable across age, education, self-assessed health, macroregion and survey round splits. We find support for the affect intensity rationale showing that women are relatively more affected in their satisfaction about life by the good or bad events or achievements occurring during their existence and less resilient (less likely to revert to their standard levels of happiness after a shock). We as well discuss biological, genetic, cultural, personality rationales advocated in the literature that can explain our findings.
Highlights
Empirical findings in the subjective wellbeing literature highlight a gender paradox
Results on the Scandinavian/non Scandinavian difference find higher gender life satisfaction difference in Scandinavian countries, while the gender depression difference remains the same
We calculate the marginal contribution of female gender and find that it raises by 0.2 percent the probability of declaring the highest level of life satisfaction and by 2 percent the probability that our respondents declare they have been depressed most of times in the last week
Summary
Empirical findings in the subjective wellbeing literature highlight a gender paradox. Women are more likely to fall into depression and, at the same time, declare higher levels of life satisfaction. On the first point Kessler et al (1993) show in their national comorbidity survey that lifetime prevalence of a major depressive disorder in women (21.3%) is almost twice as large as in men (12.7%). On the second point Nolen-Hoeksema and Rusting (1999) in their comprehensive review observe that women report more life satisfaction and more intense positive emotions than men. Matteucci and Lima (2016) test for the gender gap in life satisfaction in 85 countries in the 1981–2009 period finding a prevalence for higher female life satisfaction
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