The Venus-Mars Difference and Its Discontents: The Contextual Effects Of Gender-Ideology Gender Gaps On Life Satisfaction

The study introduces a new way of exploring gender and subjective well-being transitionally. We argue that it is not the level of equalitarianism in a society that enhances life satisfaction of women globally. Rather, what matters is the relative distance between women’s gender values and men’s. This gap, a contextualized gender ideology, requires a multilevel analytical approach to examine the impact of a normative regime. Data from the 2004-2009 World Value Survey indicates a substantial ideational gap between men and women across countries. Controlling for individual socio-demographic characteristics through hierarchical linear modeling techniques, results show that the more egalitarian the majority of men are in their gender attitudes, the higher the level of women’s life satisfaction. In contrast, women’s overall egalitarian tendency has the opposite effects. When the two effects are taken together, the larger the Venus-Mars differences at the country level, the lower the subjective well-being of women in that country, regardless of their personal ideological positions. Interestingly, this macro-level gender gap has a negative effect on men’s perception of their own well-being, as well. This negative effect of gender discrepancy is even stronger for older men. Although existing literature has shown a universal up-trend in gender egalitarianism, men’s persistent reluctance of catching up in gender egalitarianism would significantly limit improvements in both men’s and women’s subjective well-being.