Money, Sex, and Happiness
Money, Sex, and Happiness: An Empirical Study is a new paper from Blanchflower and Oswald that sets out to estimate the relationship between income, sex and happiness (as reported on GSS). It is certainly an interesting paper and rather easy to consume.
What stands out is that the happiness maximizing number of sexual partners for the previous year is one. This instantly makes one wonder if sex here is not a stand in for affection, companionship or some other love-relationship value. Though, the finding that married people have more sex than others might be driving a portion of the above finding. But to bolster the sex as representative of some other variable, I would offer up another of the paper's findings- people who have paid for sex report a lower happiness score than those who have not. Now, I have not seen data on this, but my suspicion is that those who pay for sex are likely not in a love-relationship or, if they are, that it is not a fulfilling one.
Overall, I think this is an interesting addition to the happiness literature. However, I have strong reservations about the relationship between sex and happiness and whether sex is, as noted above, merely a stand in for some other phenomenon not captured in the analysis.
What stands out is that the happiness maximizing number of sexual partners for the previous year is one. This instantly makes one wonder if sex here is not a stand in for affection, companionship or some other love-relationship value. Though, the finding that married people have more sex than others might be driving a portion of the above finding. But to bolster the sex as representative of some other variable, I would offer up another of the paper's findings- people who have paid for sex report a lower happiness score than those who have not. Now, I have not seen data on this, but my suspicion is that those who pay for sex are likely not in a love-relationship or, if they are, that it is not a fulfilling one.
Overall, I think this is an interesting addition to the happiness literature. However, I have strong reservations about the relationship between sex and happiness and whether sex is, as noted above, merely a stand in for some other phenomenon not captured in the analysis.
posted by Anonymous at 7:04 PM
1 Comments:
"Now, I have not seen data on this, but my suspicion is that those who pay for sex are likely not in a love-relationship or, if they are, that it is not a fulfilling one."
I think that's true for some, but far from all. For example, I know of married couples who hire prostitutes to add variety and new forms of excitement to their sex lives. I doubt they're any less happy than average, they just like variety and so on.
Maybe the single men who see prostitutes are likelier to be less happy, and this drags down the happiness average for those who pay for sex. Of course, these single men are not necessarily less happy *because* they pay for sex, or vice versa.
And I know for a fact that plenty of married men go to prostitutes and strip clubs.
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