Gender, time use, and health

One of the continuing paradoxes facing social epidemiologists concerns sex differences in morbidity and mortality. Although women live longer than men, they apparently get sick more. We hypothesize that women's higher morbidity levels result from less paid work and lower wages combined with mor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of health and social behavior Vol. 32; no. 2; p. 114
Main Authors Bird, C E, Fremont, A M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.06.1991
Subjects
Adult
Employment
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Health Status
Helping Behavior
Humans
Leisure Activities
Longevity
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Psychological
Morbidity
Role
Sex Factors
Surveys and Questionnaires
Time Factors
United States - epidemiology
Work
United States
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Summary:One of the continuing paradoxes facing social epidemiologists concerns sex differences in morbidity and mortality. Although women live longer than men, they apparently get sick more. We hypothesize that women's higher morbidity levels result from less paid work and lower wages combined with more hours spent in household labor, child care, and helping others, and fewer hours of leisure and sleep. Men and women hold different social roles; men hold most of the highly rewarding roles. We operationalize social roles as time commitments to various role-related activities. This approach provides interval-level measures such as time spent in caring for children instead of simple dichotomies such as parent/nonparent. We find that when gender differences in social roles are controlled, being male is associated with poorer health than being female. We conclude that if gender roles were more equal, women would experience better health than men, more consistent with their greater longevity.
ISSN:0022-1465
DOI:10.2307/2137147