As a twentysomething woman, girls in my generation were raised with high expectations: you can work and have a family—you can have it all! Before I had a child, I really, truly believed this. However, having a baby has changed my perspective and priorities. Call me what you want, but the reality is that I have a hard time seeing how I can work full-time and be able to spend enough quality time with my husband and daughter once all the daily chores are done.

The modern woman in many developed nations can have a fulfilling career, raise a family, and enjoy a fun social life. We are having our “cake” and feasting on it. So why are women less happy than men?

A study (2009) conducted by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness”, describes this phenomenon:

“By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging—one with higher subjective well-being for men.”

The study brings up a good point about who carries the “emotional burden” of running a household. While men tend to help out more nowadays compared to a generation ago, women still carry the emotional burden of keeping an orderly home and raising the kids, on top of managing their career. (The average man I know doesn’t feel too guilty about going to work and leaving their kids behind or having a messy house.)