Female Happiness: are Women Happier in Countries With Higher Level of Gender Equality?

This study investigates relationship between gender equality and female happiness at cross country individual-level. The majority of existing studies approach this relationship through link between objective gender equality and subjective well-being and obtain counterintuitive results about significant negative association. This research expands this framework and focuses on relationship between not objective but perceived gender equality with female self-reported happiness. Ordered probit models built using joint WVS and EVS cross-section data collected during 2017-2020 in 31 OECD countries provide evidence of positive association between perceived gender equality and female happiness which is robust under account for endogeneity and after controlling for individual- and country-level effects. Study implies that it is important not only to implement measures which enhance objective gender equality but to ensure effective transmission of their results into female perceptions of external conditions in order to increase female happiness.