The Gender Life Satisfaction/Depression Paradox

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.