The Cassandra Effect

Since the 1970s, women have made tremendous gains relative to men in terms of education, labor force participation, pay equity, and occupying positions of power. Of course, inequalities still remain. Despite being sixty percent of college graduates and half of law school and medical school graduates, women make up less than thirty percent of Congress and senior business management, and ten percent of CEOs. But overall the transformation of women’s status in the last two generations has been quite rapid, and likely to continue. So it’s perhaps surprising that, during the same time period, women have also <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w14969/w14969.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">consistently reported</a> declining levels of happiness. Depending on your prior political commitments, you’re going to have different explanations for that trend. On the left, you’re likely to hear people invoke the so-called “second shift.” This refers to the fact that, despite making gains in the labor market, women still pick up the bulk of the slack at home. <a href="https://medium.com/bouncin-and-behavin-blogs/the-cassandra-effect-2c0c5784d3f8">Read More</a>