The happiness gender gap: Women are the cheerier sex

THEY’RE happier and more satisfied with their lives than men – but women are also more anxious.

A study designed to chart Britain’s well-being has revealed a feel-good gap opening up between the sexes.

Figures suggest women are taking more satisfaction from the recovery of the economy after years of recession.

However they remain much more likely to admit that their well-being is undermined by anxiety.

The Office for National Statistics has been taking happiness measurements for six years following former prime minister David Cameron’s push for statistics that would describe the state of the nation in emotional rather than numerical terms.

Over that time, the figures show, all of us are generally happier. In the five years between the late summer of 2012 and September last year, the general level of happiness went up by more than 3 per cent, they indicated.

ONS statisticians linked the general rise in happiness last year to economic improvements, but gave no reason why women should have been cheering up more than men. Nor could they explain why the improvements in well-being were detected in England while there was no noticeable change in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The well-being ratings are produced from questions asked of more than 300,000 people in the ONS Annual Population Survey. The four well-being questions ask whether people felt happy, if their lives were worthwhile, whether they were satisfied with their lives, and how anxious they felt on the day before they took part in the survey.

In the year to the end of September, women on average put the level of the worth of their lives at 7.99 out of ten compared to 7.76 for men; happiness rated 7.54 for women and 7.50 for men; and women assessed their life satisfaction at 7.72 as opposed to 7.67 for men. But women rated their anxiety level at more than three out of ten – 3.07 – while men put their anxiety at only 2.75.

The ONS report said: ‘Over time, women have consistently reported higher levels of life satisfaction and worthwhile every year, but have also reported higher levels of anxiety since we first began collecting data in 2011.’