New Study: Women Get Unhappier With Age, Men Get Happier

A new study published on the Huffington Post shows while women start out happier in adult life than men, women become increasingly unhappier as they age while men become happier.

The post has gotten a ton of buzz (when I read the story, there were 100s of comments, now there are a whopping 1220) and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times even chimed in with her own thoughts on the matter today.

You’ll have to read the article to find out why women are supposedly so unhappy, but here are a couple points I found interesting and relevant to this blog:

?Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,? says study expert Betsey Stevenson in the Maureen Dowd column, “Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn?t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.?

Dowd also points out, “Another daunting thing: America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever, with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies. Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate ? and Restylane ? their 20s into their 60s.”

There’s much fodder for debate over this topic, including the “feelings issue” (women tend to be more in touch with their emotions than men), women juggling work and family while men get to share fiscal responsibilities with a partner. And then there’s the debate I hate the most, that women become depressed as they age and lose their beauty. What do you think?