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Gender Differences in Happiness: the Effects of Marriage, Social Roles, and Social Support in East Asia

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Abstract

Studies in Western countries and cross-national comparisons have shown that there are several important factors contributing to the level of happiness of individuals. Utilizing the East Asian Social Survey Health Module (2010), the present study examines this relationship in four East Asian countries: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. East Asian countries are an interesting case for this inquiry, due to the cultural contexts such as traditional gender relations. Therefore, we focus on gender differences in predictors of happiness of individuals and attempt to answer four questions: (1) Do gender differences in happiness exist in East Asian countries? (2) Does marriage still serve as the norm and thus contribute to individual’s happiness? (3) Does conforming to traditional gender roles (i.e., employment and parenthood) contribute to individual’s happiness? (4) Is the availability of social support (i.e., emotional, financial, and instrumental) positively associated with individual’s happiness? We find that there are gender differences in the determinants of happiness in East Asian countries. The result also indicates that marital status is a strong indicator of happiness in East Asian countries, especially for men but not necessarily for women. In addition, full time employment is positively associated with men’s happiness in China but negatively associated with women’s in Japan. Finally, social support is positively associated with individual’s happiness, especially for women.

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Notes

  1. While we did not specifically discuss in this paper, we tested a series of interactions between age and social supports on happiness. We did not find any interpretable results (tables are available upon request from the authors).

  2. The target population is adults aged 18 and above for China, South Korea, and Taiwan, and 20 and above for Japan. The sampling methods are: three-staged PPS sampling for China and Taiwan, two-stage stratified random sampling for Japan, and multi-stage area probability sampling for South Korea (East Asian Social Survey 2010).

  3. The question regarding a level of happiness was asked only to a subsample in Taiwan, resulting in a smaller sample size of this country.

  4. Although previous research regarding social support has categorized “providing financial support” and “taking care of household chores” as the same type of support (= instrumental support), the current study used these measures separately due to the fact that these were asked as different questions in the dataset. In addition, we did not include informational support because it is not available in the 2010 EASS data.

  5. The association between having an instrumental support and happiness is negative and statistically non-significant for men.

  6. To promote gender equality, each country has established active policy measures. South Korea has implemented legal protections for women’s employment: the Equal Employment law in 1987, the Ban on Gender Discrimination in 1998, and the Gender Equality in Employment Act in 1999. Japan has established several policies such as the Child Care Leave Law (1992), the Basic Law for a Gender Equal Society (1999), or the Gender Equality Law (2007) that requires penalties for discrimination against women in hiring and work conditions. In China, the Marriage Law has been revised to improve women’s position, such as strengthening daughter’s right in inheritance or expanding a definition of domestic violence that has been narrowly defined. In Taiwan, the Gender Equity Education Act in 2004 that requires gender neutral curriculum development was implemented in addition to many changes to family law to protect women’s right in the 1990’s.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social, Cultural, and Justice Studies, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 308 Brock Hall, Dept 2102, 615 McCallie Ave, Chattanooga, TN, 37403, USA

    Makiko Hori

  2. Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, 114 Stubbs Hall, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Yoshinori Kamo

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  1. Makiko Hori
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Correspondence to Makiko Hori.

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Hori, M., Kamo, Y. Gender Differences in Happiness: the Effects of Marriage, Social Roles, and Social Support in East Asia. Applied Research Quality Life 13, 839–857 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-017-9559-y

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