Approval of Equal Rights and Gender - Differences in Well-Being

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paperexplores whether norms regarding the appropriate pay for women compared to menmay explain these findings. In order to capture the spatial variation in such norms, wetake community level information on citizens’ approval of an equal rights amendmentto the Swiss constitution as a proxy for the norm that “women and men shall have theright to equal pay for work of equal value”. We find that the gender wage gap issmaller where a larger fraction of the citizenry has voted in favor of equal pay. Wealso find that employed women are less (not more) satisfied with life in liberalcommunities where the gender wage gap is smaller. These findings are consistentwith the idea that norms regarding the appropriate relative pay of women comparedto men are shaping gender differences in well-being.