<p>It says civil rights and the erosion of prejudice appears to be reasons this has happened. Thank you, civil rights veterans!</p>
<p>Quoting it: " Blacks are still not as happy, overall, as whites, but in seminal new researchwhich tracks the changes in happiness levels by race since the 1970s for the first timeeconomists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers from the University of Pennsylvania found that the gap between black and white happiness has declined by about 40 percent. Wolfers said: It is the largest and most important change in happiness for any population I have ever seen…</p>
<p>[T]here are three possible reasons this dramatic shift may have occurred. First, three decades ago the gap between black and white happiness was astonishingly largelife was miserable for African-Americans then.</p>
<p>Second, it is clear that what has changed most are things that we cannot measure, and which spring from rights, heightened status, and erosion of prejudice. Stevenson and Wolfers write: Our study illustrates that the fruits of the civil rights movement may lay in other, more difficult to document, improvements in the quality of life. It makes sense that respect and esteem can lift your spirits. It may also translate into an ongoing optimism: a Gallup poll taken this year found 63 percent of blacks thought their standard of living was getting better; 41 percent of whites did…"</p>
<p>The third reason is more complicated:</p>
<p>"A third reason is that whites have grown less happy. Clearly, while Beck and his ilk might like to see it as a zero-sum game, where the equality of African-Americans comes at the expense of whites, this is patently false and misleading. In fact, the key to this trend is womenwhite women of all ages and incomes are substantially less happy, while, intriguingly, black women at the same time have become much happier. Yet in the 1970s white women were the happiest of any group. What happened? Why didnt feminism bring them the happiness civil rights brought blacks?</p>
<p>Of course, its not that simple. Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., believes it is about expectations: Black women are where white women were in the 1960sthey can look back at just how bad their mothers and grandmothers had it. They are optimistic about how far they can go in comparison to the past. But the more gains you make, the higher your expectations are, and when progress stagnates, you feel frustration. But Donna Franklin, author of Ensuring Inequality: The Structural Transformation of the African American Family, thinks black women are happier because fewer are getting married today, and because of a cultural comfort with single black women, are less likely to get depressed if they dont. …"
[Baird:</a> Blacks, Whites, and the Happiness Gap - Newsweek](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/27/baird-blacks-whites-and-the-happiness-gap.html]Baird:”>Baird: Blacks, Whites, and the Happiness Gap)</p>