Gender differences in Iranian subjective well-being

علوم اجتماعی دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد

Article 5, Volume 10, Issue 2 - Serial Number 22, March 2014, Pages 225-242   

Document Type: Scientific-Research

DOI: 10.22067/jss.v0i0.38470

Authors

Fatemeh Modiri^* ; Taghi Azad Armaki

Abstract

As in most countries men enjoy a higher level of financial prosperity and prestige of employment, it is reasonably expected that they should enjoy a higher level of subjective well-being as well, but the results of a number of studies as well as World Values Surveys surprisingly indicate the opposite—that gender privileges with respect to subjective well-being in many countries are higher in women. The purpose of this article is to examine gender differences in the Iranian population as far as subjective well-being is concerned applying a nation-wide survey by means of a questionnaire. The survey results show that: (1) the subjective well-being in women is higher than men; (2) factors affecting the subjective well-being of women and men in the ground variables are gender, income, employment, marital status, residence and socioeconomic status. Moreover, between education and women’s subjective well-being there exists a relationship, while such a relationship does not seem to exist if men are considered. The findings are in line with Inglehart and Easterline theories but contrary to inglehart theory, there isn’t any relationship between equal gender attitude and subjective well-being.

Keywords

Happiness; Life satisfaction; universal values; subjective well-being; quality of life; Human development; gender

References