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Claudia Senik

Gender Identity, Norms, and Happiness

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Working Paper

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Danzer Natalia, Rachel Kranton, Piotr Larysz, and Claudia Senik (2025). Gender Identity, Norms, and Happiness, PSE WP 2025-33.

Topics:
Happiness Economics
Gender and Family Economics
Natalia Danzer, Rachel Kranton, Piotr Larysz and Claudia Senik
2025

How do gender identity and norms relate to happiness? This paper takes advantage of the 2024 European Social Survey, which asks respondents to report their feelings of femininity and masculinity, and studies the relationships between these self-assessments, (non-)conformity to gender norms, and life satisfaction. The results show a robust asymmetry between men and women. For men, feeling more masculine, behaving in ways more typical of men, and life satisfaction are all positively cross-correlated. For women, while feeling more feminine and life satisfaction are similarly positively correlated, behaving in ways more typical of women is, in contrast, associated with lower life satisfaction. These patterns vary across European regions, potentially reflecting different histories. The results are robust to alternative measures of typical behavior of men and women and subjective well-being. The findings support theories of gender identity and reveal possible trade-offs implied by gender norms for women.