Women around the world report higher levels of life satisfaction than men, but at the same time report more daily stress. And while this finding holds across countries on average, it does not hold in countries where gender rights are compromised, as in much of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite more happiness in females, depression and anxiety also had a higher average than males. It was also explained that women experience both more negative and positive emotions (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002) and report more negative emotions and depression.
In short, the happiest men are those who derive pleasure from their work. This point is spot on across all aspects of wellbeing, such as emotional, physical and mental satisfaction. And, it doesn't all come down to dollars and cents.
Apparently, men do not get meaner, irritable and more sarcastic as they get older. In fact, among the men participating in The Study of Adult Development - the longest longitudinal study of adult life ever conducted - men seem to get happier as they get older.
Many biological markers indicate faster aging in almost all of the tissues in male bodies, Kerr said. Women get heart disease later. Their vascular health is generally better than men's, although they have more disease in small blood vessels in late life, Mielke said.
While men seem to be genetically predisposed to be attracted to women in their mid-to-late-20s, women tend to be attracted to men around their ages, if not older; this means men in their 30s have the best of both worlds. Men in their 30s are attractive to a wide range of women, from 20-somethings to women in their 40s.
It turns out married men are actually happier after marriage than they would be if they stayed single, according to researchers at Michigan State University. The study looked at 1,366 people who weren't married before participating in the survey, got married at some point during, and stayed married.
Closing Thoughts. Traditional masculinity is far from being a problem. As we've noticed from the study, men with a strong sense of masculinity are happier, enjoy more stable life outcomes, and form healthier relationships. And when husbands are happier, healthier, and more stable, so are the wives.
Active Listening
Listen to him without giving advice unless he asks for it. Make your boyfriend happy by becoming his confidante, his sounding wall. Keep his confidences to yourself and resist the urge to share his secrets.
Women tend to score higher than men on measures of emotional intelligence, but gender stereotypes of men and women can affect how they express emotions. The sex difference is small to moderate, somewhat inconsistent, and is often influenced by the person's motivations or social environment.
Across nine different experiments (N = 355) women generated negative emotions more efficiently than men. There was no sex difference in the bias to report negative emotions and in positive emotions.
Among humans, women's life span is almost 8% on average longer than men's life span. But among wild mammals, females in 60% of the studied species have, on average, 18.6% longer lifespans.
According to a study published in the Social Indicators Research journal, we're the happiest between the ages of 30-34, and midlife (our 40s and 50s) is not perceived as the least happy period in life.
'The probability increases sharply from childhood to the ages of 30–34, when it reaches the maximum. At this point it is important to remark that individuals' happiest periods are long on average: for half of respondents this period lasts two decades or longer.
Hu found that reported happiness was higher overall among married people than unmarried people. By gender, 56.2 percent of married men said they were “very happy,” compared with only 39.4 percent of unmarried men who said so.
Long-term loneliness also has negative physical health implications, such as cardiovascular disease. Single men are also more likely to be depressed than married men. Married men are more likely to be satisfied with their life in retirement and are more likely to live longer.
As men age, their health declines and the risk of mortality increases. Not surprisingly, however, the level of risk is tied to marital status: married men in their 50s, 60s, and 70s have lower mortality rates than those who are unmarried (never married, divorced, or widowed).
One study published in PLOS One found that women considered coupled men more attractive and spent significantly more time looking at pictures of potential suitors when they were depicted as married or in a relationship.
Men may want younger women to make them feel good about themselves and to stave off existential loneliness. In some settings, Hollywood, for example, there's also excessive pressure to be young and beautiful. In those cases, older men might subconsciously hope that their partner's youth will rub onto them.
As long as a man has that potential, he is a man in his prime. As for a man's mental prime, psychological studies have shown that he reaches his problem solving peak at around 19 years of age but his memory peaks at around 28 years of age, and then at around 45 years of age his brain cells begin to go into decline.
Heightened expectations.
Even though it's naturally expected of men to deal with the hardest part of meeting someone which is initiating contacts, we men are also saddled with even more difficult and anxiety-inducing expectations when it comes to dating and relationships.