In plain language
You might expect that in countries with greater gender equality, teenage girls would feel happier and more satisfied with life — after all, they enjoy better opportunities in education, health, and future employment. This study put that intuition to one of the largest tests ever conducted, analyzing Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from 2015 and 2018 covering 941,475 adolescents across 78 countries, and examining life satisfaction, positive feelings, and negative feelings alongside national indices of gender equality.
The results reveal a paradox. Gender gaps in adolescent subjective well-being favoring boys were actually larger in more gender-equal countries. Digging into why, the researchers found that greater national gender equality was associated with higher well-being for boys, but girls’ well-being was essentially unaffected by their country’s level of equality. The objective gains girls experience in egalitarian societies did not translate into feeling better about their lives.
The authors suggest a social-comparison explanation: in more egalitarian countries, young people compare themselves across gender lines rather than only within their own gender, which may heighten girls’ awareness of remaining discrimination and dilute the felt benefits of equality. The findings matter for policy: objective equality measures alone are not enough, and researchers and policy makers need to understand the macro-level factors beyond formal equality that actually support girls’ well-being.
Key findings
- Using PISA 2015 and 2018 data from 78 countries (N = 941,475 adolescents), gender gaps in subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect) consistently favored boys.
- These gender gaps were larger in countries with greater gender equality than in less gender-equal countries — the “equality paradox.”
- Country-level gender equality was associated with higher subjective well-being for boys, but girls’ well-being was not affected by their country’s level of gender equality.
- The enhanced opportunities and resources available to girls in egalitarian countries did not translate into improved life satisfaction or affect, contrary to need-fulfillment theory.
- The authors propose that gender equality facilitates between-gender social comparisons, which may increase girls’ awareness of discrimination and offset the benefits of objective equality.
- The study provides the most conclusive evidence to date on this question, resolving limitations of prior smaller cross-national studies.
How to cite
APA
Guo, J., Basarkod, G., Perales, F., Parker, P. D., Marsh, H. W., Donald, J., Dicke, T., Sahdra, B. K., Ciarrochi, J., Hu, X., Lonsdale, C., Sanders, T., & del Pozo Cruz, B. (2024). The equality paradox: Gender equality intensifies male advantages in adolescent subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 50(1), 147–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221125619
BibTeX
@article{guo2024equality,
author = {Guo, Jiesi and Basarkod, Geetanjali and Perales, Francisco and Parker, Philip D. and Marsh, Herbert W. and Donald, James and Dicke, Theresa and Sahdra, Baljinder K. and Ciarrochi, Joseph and Hu, Xiang and Lonsdale, Chris and Sanders, Taren and del Pozo Cruz, Borja},
title = {The Equality Paradox: Gender Equality Intensifies Male Advantages in Adolescent Subjective Well-Being},
journal = {Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin},
year = {2024},
volume = {50},
number = {1},
pages = {147--164},
doi = {10.1177/01461672221125619}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.