Sex differences in positive well-being: A consideration of emotional style and marital status.

This article reviews all published studies reporting tests for sex differences inwell-being. Women were found to report greater happiness and life satisfaction than men. This sex difference was explained in terms of mens and womens ocial roles: The female (vs. male) gender role specifies greater emo-tional responsiveness. Furthermore, past role-related xperiences provide women with appropriate skills and attitudes. Womens (vs. mens) greater well-being was also found to hold for married but not unmarried Ss: For both sexes the married state (vs. unmarried) was associated with favorable well-being, but the favorable outcomes proved stronger for women than men. Given that most Ss were married, the overall sex difference in well-being can be attributed toSs marital status. These findings were discussed in the context of prior research on sex differences innegative well-being. Research on subjective social indicators has demonstrated that ones objective life circumstances donot necessarily corre-spond to ones personal experience of well-being. The fact, then, that men and women in our society differ in terms of a variety of biological, personality, and situational factors may or may not result in sex differences in subjective quality of life.