Age and the gender gap in distress
Authors: Peter McDonough and Lisa Strohschein
Overview
Abstract (English)
Women report more psychological distress than men and recent evidence suggests that this gap increases with age. It has been argued that the widening differential in distress reflects the progressive and cumulative nature of women’s disadvantaged work and family roles. Drawing on the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis and social stress theory, we test: (1) whether exposure to chronic stress accounts for an increasingly larger proportion of the gender effect on distress with age; and (2) whether women are increasingly more vulnerable to the effects of chronic stress on distress with age. Data are from the 1994 wave of the Canadian National Population Health Survey, a national probability sample of women and men aged 20 and older (N = 13,798). Exposure to long-term stress helps us understand gender differences in distress for those in their pre-retirement years. However, contrary to the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis, the model became increasingly less likely to explain such differences with age. Gendered vulnerability to long-term stress was not evident in the sample. The implications of these findings are discussed with particular reference to our ongoing efforts to understand health in the context of social structure and subjectivity
Abstract (French)
Please note that abstracts only appear in the language of the publication and might not have a translation.
Details
Type | Journal article |
---|---|
Author | Peter McDonough and Lisa Strohschein |
Publication Year | 2003 |
Title | Age and the gender gap in distress |
Volume | 38 |
Journal Name | Women and Health |
Number | 1 |
Pages | 20-Jan |
Publication Language | English |
- Peter McDonough
- Peter McDonough and Lisa Strohschein
- Age and the gender gap in distress
- Women and Health
- 38
- 2003
- 1
- 20-Jan