I would question relative happiness as tradition trained women to communicate that they were happy wether the were in reality or not.

I have to agree with the statements above. Also, as a culture we've been moving more into self-reflection and self-improvement, where people are looking at themselves and their lives and saying "this job/family/house isn't enough, I want to be fulfilled as a person too". They want intellectual stimulation and emotional happiness as well. They've been looking beyond supplying the life basics and into the higher needs. They've been striving for more, sometimes unrealistically so or striving for too much, but looking foward. All of that also breeds a lot of analyzation (so many more people now not only see a therapist but openly talk about it).

All of that means that people are both acknowledging how unhappy they were with past roles or past paths, and striving to get more now. Whereas our parents' and grandparents' generations didn't talk about these things. They hid problems, they didn't discuss emotional issues, they put on the happy face so people would think they were the good wife, mother, etc.

I don't know that women are less happy now, as much as they are simply striving for more and raising the bar for what happiness means.

I also don't know if women specfically are less happy, I would imagine that other complex issues in our culture and the mainstream values mean both genders are struggling.

That kind of article makes me nervous because it seems like an argument for "see, you were all much happier when you served everyone else, when you were only a mother or a wife, when you didn't trouble us with those pesky goals and demands." Sort of like "you should've been happy with the little concessions we gave you. wanting more is just making you unhappy"