More about women....

Are Women Happier than men?

 

Blog Post by: Positive Acorn ~ www.positiveacorn.com
Posted By: Robert Biswas-Diener
Posted on: September 11, 2012
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Are women Happier than men?

2 weeks ago a landmark study was published in which a team of researchers identified a gene associated with happiness in women. The researchers worked with 152 men and 193 women, in racial and socioeconomic proportions that resemble the overall make-up of the USA. From this group they sampled happiness and saliva (from which they were able to analyze, and double check, genetic factors).

The researchers discovered the genetic marker MAOA-L was associated with happiness in women but not in men. MAOA-L resides on the x chromosome, and because women have two x chromosomes where men have an x and a y women are able to have a double marker whereas men can have one at the most. The research team found that women with two markers for MAOA-L (about 17% of women) were significantly happier than those women who had only one who were-in turn-significantly happier than those women who did not have this gene.

This is a major breakthrough because it is a step closer to understanding happiness at the genetic level. It is also interesting because in men MAOA-L is known as the "warrior gene." That's right, in men this same gene is directly associated with impassivity, aggression and anti-social personality traits.
A best guess-based on research-- about why these sex differences emerge: This genetic marker is activated by estrogen, a female hormone and affects the way the brain uses serotonin, a neurotransmitter closely associated with pleasurable feelings. For both men and women, however, it appears that this genetic marker interacts with early life experiences such that it makes people hypersensitive, fearful and-as a result-more aggressive. This trend is particularly pronounced in men, likely because MAOA-L interacts with the male hormone testosterone.

The take home message is that in the absence of life stresses women have a genetic advantage where happiness is concerned. This pans out in other research on happiness: Although sex differences account for only about 1% of happiness, there are large sex differences in the intensity of happiness. Women report higher highs and are more likely to say that they are "very happy" (as opposed to "moderately happy") than are men. See the CBS 2 minute video here: http://tinyurl.com/9bqnd7x 

Women at Work

Check out a great Blog Post by the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology or CAPP. And if you are interested in understanding more about what is happening for individual women at the micro-level, please complete the Capp Women at Work Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WomenatWorkSurvey

Five Things You Didn’t Know About Women at Work

 

CAPP BLOG Post - http://blog.cappeu.com/2012/09/11/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-women-at-work/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCappBlog+%28The+Capp+Blog%29

Posted: 11 Sep 2012 03:12 AM PDT

Posted by: Alex Linley & Nicky Garcea

 

 

Over the last few days we have been reviewing the UN report on The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics. This report is produced every five years, following the Beijing Declaration adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women.

 

            As we’re currently running the Capp Women at Work Survey focused at the individual level (you can complete the survey here), we have also been looking at trends and statistics at the international and national policy level.

 

            Here are five things you probably didn’t know about women at work:

 

1. Women’s participation in the global labour market has been steady at about 52% from 1990 through to 2010, whereas men’s participation has declined from 81% to 77%.

 

 

2. Women spend at least twice as much time as men on unpaid domestic work, leaving them with total work hours that are longer than men’s in all regions of the world.

 

 

3. Relative to their overall share of total employment, you’re significantly less likely to find a woman as a legislator, senior official or manager, and much more likely to find a woman as a clerk, sales worker or service worker.

 

 

4. Following from this, more than three quarters of women’s employment in most of the developed world is in the service sector – a significantly higher proportion than men’s employment, although this is increasing for both genders.

 

 

5. And this looks unlikely to change soon: Based on participation in tertiary (university / college) education, women are predominant in the fields of education, health and welfare, social sciences, and humanities and art, but they are significantly under-represented in science and engineering.

 

 

The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics gives us a macro-level view of what is happening for women in the world of work and beyond.

 

            If you’d like to help us understand more about what is happening for individual women at the micro-level, please join us in completing the Capp Women at Work Survey. In this survey, we are interested in understanding more about why as a woman you do what you do at work, your achievements, your career progression and role models, the advice you may need, your learning and the legacy you would want to see for other women.

 

            As a thank you to all the women who complete the Women at Work Survey, we will enter you into our prize draw for an iPad 3 or three runner up prizes of a Spa Day. We will also give all our respondents a sneak preview of our findings and results before they are published more widely.

 

            We’re keen to collect responses from as diverse a working female population as possible – so we invite and encourage you to pass on this invitation to your female colleagues, friends and family as widely as possible. Thank you – we appreciate it!

Aging Too Soon

War might be making young bodies old

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

 

BOSTON – A litany of physical or emotional problems spill out as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans make their way, one by one, to the 11th floor of a VA hospital in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

 

The tragic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or battlefield concussion are all too evident. Even more alarming for researchers is emerging evidence that these newest American combat veterans — former GIs and Marines in their 20s and 30s — appear to be growing old before their time. Scientists see early signs of heart disease and diabetes, slowed metabolisms and obesity — maladies more common to middle age or later.

To read the rest of the article go here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-08-06/veterans-aging-study-trauma/57608072/1?csp=hf