Social Econ Blog

In an interesting article on Slate( http://www.slate.com/id/2137537/) the author analyzes the tranformations in marraige that have taken place as a result of the feminist movement. The author finds that women who identify most with feminist ideals have lower levels of happiness than their non-feminist counterparts. While there are obvious possible statistical flaws here (omitted variable bias) the article does point out some plausible explanations for the trend. One explanation offered is that an expansion of the choice set for female careers has actually made women worse off because they now feel a greater degree of "buyers remorse" towards their choices. Feminists also might have higher expectations and are more likely to feel unsatisfied when these expectations are unmet. Since we are discussing marraige and eastern vs. western ideals I thought that this could contribute to the debate. What are your thoughts?

Update -- First, kudos to Varun for both finding an interesting and relevant article and having the courage to post it on the main page. Second, there are serious selection problems with these results. So while they continue to force us to think about the relationship between choice and reported happiness, take them with a large grain of salt. -- Bryce