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.

Keywords: Gender life satisfaction/depression paradox; Subjective wellbeing.

Fig. 1

Depression and High Life Satisfaction across different countries. (average values across sample period)

Fig. 2

Gendered marginal effects: age classes. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of age class on depression. The age class between 70 and 79 is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 3

Gendered marginal effects: employment status. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of employment status on depression. The “Paid Work class” is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 4

Gendered marginal effects: education classes. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of education status on depression. The Upper Tertiary class of educational status is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 5

Gendered marginal effects: household income deciles. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of household’s net income on depression. The first (lowest income) class of the household’s net income is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 6

Gendered marginal effects: marital status. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of marital status on depression. The “married” class of marital status is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 7

Gendered marginal effects: self-assessed health. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of self health on depression. The “Very Good” class of self.-assessed health is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 8

Gendered marginal effects: frequency of social meetings. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of social meeting on depression. The “Never” class of social meeting is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 9

Gendered marginal effects: political orientation. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of Placement on the left right scale on depression. The 0 class (extreme left) is the omitted benchmark

Fig. 10

Gendered marginal effects: income satisfaction. Table 3, Column (1) estimate. Average Marginal effect of feelings about income nowadays on depression. The “Living Comfortably on present income” is the omitted benchmark.