Contracepting Happiness? A Proposed Exploration of the Happiness Gender Gap and Hormonal Contraceptive Use

Abstract

Recent studies, especially those conducted by Stevenson and Wolfers (2009), have found that women’s reported happiness ratings have been decreasing steadily over the past 40 years. These studies have indicated that women now report lower happiness levels than men. To understand why this is taking place despite social improvements in women’s lives in the United States of America, researchers have examined different social areas in a woman’s life (e.g., marital status, income, educational levels, and number of children) but have been consistently unable to isolate a significant factor that could explain the deficit. Despite the relationship between the rise of birth control and the increased societal acceptance of the women’s movement, birth control’s effects on happiness levels in women have yet to be explored. Since the 1960s, hormonal birth control has been safer, more effective, readily available, and more widely used in the United States of America; estimates as high as 61.7% of women in the United States of America have been reported to be taking some form of hormonal birth control as of 2014 (Daniels, Daugherty, & Jones, 2014). Researchers have demonstrated that hormonal changes associated with the use of hormonal birth control affect cognate receptors, neurotransmitters, and any area where steroids may be synthesized (Barth, Villringer, & Sacher, 2015; Murphy, Cole, Greenberger, & Segal, 1998; Picard & McEwen, 2014; Wooley & McEwen, 1994). Many hormone receptors are co-localized on neurons that regulate mood, cognition, and other important functions. This dissertation hypothesizes that a survey study into the effects of hormonal contraceptives on mood and cognition could use contraceptives as a covariate factor in happiness level by gender to generate greater insight into some potential mechanisms of the happiness gender gap in the United States of America.