“На радость маме… и папе”: как появление детей сказывается на субъективном благополучии матерей и отцов?

Журнал социологии и социальной антропологии. 2024. Т. 27. № 3. С. 39–64.

Gasiukova E., Korotaev S., Tuarsheva D.

In the article, the authors address the issue of gender inequality and compare

levels of subjective well-being of men and women in Russia. Subjective well-being allows

us to consider and summarize the advantages in various spheres taking into account

their importance for a person and therefore allows us to assign the more (or less)

advantageous position of some in relation to others. In this paper, differences in the

subjective well-being of men and women are calculated at the stage of childbirth and

subsequent upbringing of children, since this period is characterized by fluctuations in

life satisfaction, and the question of who benefits more from the new role of a parent

becomes debatable: a man or a woman. The empirical analysis is based on a fixed-effects

model built on panel data RLMS HSE for 2016–2021. The subjective well-being is

measured using a question on respondent’s life satisfaction. The results of the analysis

show that childbirth is associated with an increase in subjective well-being for both

women and men. A married couple with a newborn baby feels more satisfied, regardless

of material affluence and age when the father or mother gave birth to a child. The data

allow us to state that women, becoming mothers, do not receive additional benefits

compared to men: a childbirth is equally rewarded by an increase in life satisfaction

of both mothers and fathers. However, the joy of parents does not last long: the stage of

upbringing of 3–4-year-old children has an equally negative effect on the life satisfaction

of respondents of both sexes.

Keywords: субъективное благополучие, гендер, gender, gender inequality, гендерное неравенство, subjective well-being, рождение детей, childbirth, motherhood and fatherhood, материнство и отцовство