[lbo-talk] is our children worse?

[SA]

[This is from a "happiness studies" study by Daniel Kahneman and a team 
of psychologists and economists. They did an intense study of life 
satisfaction and daily affect for a sample of women in Columbus, OH and 
a parallel sample in Rennes, France. "Difmax" is a measure of affect - 
i.e., how happy one feels in a given moment.]

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/conference_papers/22_09_2006/KahnemanFinal.pdf

A rather larger difference  was observed in the enjoyment of child care 
and of
interactions with children.  The American mothers spent more time 
focused on child care (18%
vs. 14% of the waking day), but enjoyed it less. In the standardized 
units that were used in Table
2, the mean of Difmax during childcare is -.22 in Columbus, .09 in  
Rennes (t  = 2.76). The
difference in  the enjoyment of children spills into the response to  
family occasions.  Women in
both samples enjoyed one-on-one interaction with their spouse about 
equally  (Difmax averages
were .32 and .33), but the corresponding values when children were 
present were -.05 and .22,
suggesting that the presence of the  spouse hardly makes American  
children less annoying to
their mother.  The relative unhappiness of American mothers obviously 
demands further study. 
Our French team member suggested that French children are simply better, 
but other hypotheses
should also be considered.