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Have you ever heard the saying that women need to have children in order to be happy? Ever wonder why people say that? New paper thread alert! https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620909728
This "advice" always struck me as odd, since there are some GREAT parts of parenting, and some really TOUGH parts. It can't possibly be the only path to happiness for everyone. And as #feminists aren't we a wee bit suspicious when people say there is a right way to do womanhood?
I had a hunch based on our work on the palliative effects of system justification that people might just say this because it feels good to believe norms that support the system. Perhaps it feels good to think women are "better off" doing what is expected of them (have babies!).
I pre-registered this hunch https://osf.io/x346u/ and went to town comparing attitudes about motherhood in 49 countries.
I found that women (and men) who agree that women must have children tend to be happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who disagree.
I found that women (and men) who agree that women must have children tend to be happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who disagree.
Furthermore, since I was comparing countries that varied A LOT, I found that this phenomenon was *especially* true for people in countries with worse gender equality.
Yikes! This suggest that men and women might be motivated in more unequal gender systems to justifying a system-serving norm, such as the one that women must have children.
But... what if this norm is right? Maybe women with children just are happier than women without children?
It's a good question. So I compared women with and women without children in 89 countries. I found that the motherhood norm drastically exaggerates the effect of motherhood on women's wellbeing.
First, I found no difference between women with and women without children on self-reported happiness. I found women with children self-reported being slightly more satisfied with their life than women without children, but the difference was *TINY*.
This suggests, at best, that the motherhood norm (that women MUST have children in order to be happy) DRASTICALLY overstates the role of motherhood in women's lives.
I'll end this by saying, I wrote this paper up while I was pregnant with my second child. Kids are rad. But we really should stop telling each other what to do. Pre-registration, data, & syntax: https://osf.io/x346u/
