Monday, January 9, 2012

Money = Happiness

I recently read an article in Psychology Today by Satoshi Kanazawa entitled "Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil." That's a bit harsh. In the following quote, Kanazawa describes why feminism is soooo evil:

"Modern feminism is evil because it ultimately makes women (and men) unhappy.  In a forthcoming article in the American Economic Journal:  Economic Policy, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania show that American women over the last 35 years have steadily become less and less happy, as they have made more and more money relative to men.  Women used to be a lot happier than men despite the fact that they made much less money than men.  The sex gap in happiness (in women’s favor) has declined in the past 35 years as the sex gap in pay (in men’s favor) narrowed.  Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do.  As a result, today women are just as unhappy, or even more unhappy than, men are.  As I explain in a previous post, money does not make women happy."

Sorry, Satoshi, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. Money has made me VERY happy. It's not the money itself; it's the freedom that money can buy. Gretchen Rubin describes how money contributes to happiness in her book "The Happiness Project". In fact, she dedicated a whole chapter to money and how it relates to happiness. She said, "Well, money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy lots of things that contribute mightily to happiness. People’s biggest worries include financial anxiety, health concerns, job insecurity, and having to do tiring and boring chores. Spent right, money can go a long way to relieving these problems. Also, if spent wisely, money can help you boost your happiness. For example, philosophers and scientists agree that having strong ties to other people is the KEY to happiness, and money can pay for a plane ticket to visit your sister, a babysitter for a date night with your sweetheart, or pizza and beer for a Super Bowl Party with friends. Novelty and challenge will make you happier, and money can pay for a trip to France, for a drawing class, for a mountain bike.” So money really can contribute to happiness.

Final Score:
Gretchen, 1
Satoshi, 0

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for addressing this. Not only is it wrong, it's lacking a cogent argument:

    "Women used to be a lot happier than men despite the fact that they made much less money than men. The sex gap in happiness (in women’s favor) has declined in the past 35 years as the sex gap in pay (in men’s favor) narrowed. Now women make as much as, sometimes even more than, men do. As a result, today women are just as unhappy, or even more unhappy than, men are."

    Did I miss the connecting link? "As a result"? How about, if anything, women who are working and raising children insist on having it all and over-extend themselves, thereby making themselves crazy?

    Or maybe, working parents still don't share an equal work load at home, which means women (who must accept their share of the responsibility for taking on more at-home work and not trusting the men to do it) are doing more than their male partners WHILE working just as many hours AND making less money than men, so they're frustrated.

    Anyway - yes. Money = freedom = happy. Not inherent happiness, but at least the opportunity to have more expensive fun. :)

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  2. Thanks for your comment. I am currently reading "The Second Shift", which focuses on working parents and the division of housework. Even though the book was first published in 1989, there still seems to be a gender gap in sharing the work load at home. I'm hoping that sometime in the future the distribution of housework will no longer be a gender issue.

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