The Volokh Conspiracy

Todd makes many good points in his recent post on academics and happiness. I think that Todd is absolutely right that, relative to the general economy, the academic economy tends to be status-based. He is also right that the struggle for status among academics tends to generate unhappiness because it is inherently a zero-sum game. My status can't rise unless some other academic's status falls.

That said, I don't think this proves that academics, overall, are less happy than members of other professions. The zero-sum conflict over status is a source of unhappiness that is more prevalent in academia than elsewhere. But academia also offers unique opportunities for happiness that most other professions don't have, or at least not to the same extent. These include the ability to work on ideas that interest you, controlling your own schedule, and influencing public debate.

For the reasons I discussed in this post, I therefore continue to believe that, on balance, academics are no more unhappy with their jobs then people working in most other professions.

The status problem and other arguments claiming that academics are unhappy because of the nature of their jobs should be rigorously distinguished from claims that academics are unhappy because the people who go into academia tend to be unhappy for reasons unrelated to their jobs. Todd's argument that academics tend to be unhappy because they are disproportionately nonreligious falls into the latter category. Or at least it does so unless one claims that nonreligious academics lost their faith as a result of going into academia. I would guess, however, that most nonreligious academics held those beliefs even before they took academic jobs.

My view on academics' happiness is that they are generally happier with their jobs than professionals in most other fields. I am agnostic on the question of where academics' overall happiness with their lives ranks.