The latter phenomenon has important implications, as the process or the likelihood of reducing the discrepancies between one's aspirations and outcomes may itself be more relevant to well-being than the level of said discrepancies. For instance, the so-called "paradox of contented female workers" (Agassi, 1982) describes a situation where, because of different aspirations (and in particular lower emphasis being placed on earnings in comparison to men), although women in general are aware of the gender wage gap, they do not report significantly greater dissatisfaction with their job and consequently their subjective well-being (Crosby 1982, Lalive and Stutzer, 2010, Davidson, 2004). First, we start by investigating the relationship at the macro-level, by focusing on cross-country variation (Model 1).