Chronic Discrimination and Sleep Problems in Late Life: Religious Involvement as Buffer

Abstract

The association between chronic discrimination and sleep problems is important to examine in older adults because sleep is highly reactive to stress and impaired sleep has diverse adverse health effects. The association between chronic discrimination and sleep problems may, however, be confounded by a number of time-stable influences, and this association may also vary by religious involvement. In three waves (2006, 2010, and 2014) of the Health and Retirement Study ( N = 7,130), the overall association between chronic discrimination and sleep problems is negated in econometric models that control for all time-stable sources of confounding. Religious involvement does not modify this association for men, but a significant association is found among women who do not attend religious services. These analyses suggest that the association between chronic discrimination and sleep quality in late life is substantially inflated due to unobserved time-stable confounders, although women who do not attend religious services may be at risk.

Perceived Distributive Unfairness and Mental Health: The Gender-contingent Buffering Effects of Religion

“…Although examining the ways that religion buffers the association between perceived distributive unfairness and mental health represents an important step forward, it is plausible that the moderating effects of religion may differ for men and women. Prior research suggests that the stressbuffering effects of religion tend to be stronger for women (Bierman et al 2018;Jung 2014;Mirola 1999), African Americans (Bierman 2006), older adults (Jung 2018), and individuals with lower levels of education (DeAngelis and Ellison 2018) than their counterparts (e.g., men, whites, younger adults, and individuals with higher levels of education). In this study, I expand upon these findings by examining whether the hypothesized buffering effects of religion on perceived distributive unfairness are greater for women than for men.…”

“…This fierce status competition creates stress, various anxieties, and psychological problems (Kim et al 2020) 2009). Taken together, given this unique religious context in South Korea, this study is able to evaluate whether the theoretical perspectives and empirical findings about the nexus among religion, stress, gender, and mental health primarily set forth in Christian-majority contexts are broadly applicable to other religious contexts (Bierman et al 2018;Mirola 1999).…”

“…Given that perceived distributive unfairness connects with the idea of inequality, evaluating the gender-contingent buffering effects of religion vis-a `-vis perceived distributive unfairness may shed light on the gendered aspects of the social inequality-religion dynamics. Third, previous literature documents that the mental health consequences of religion are gendered (Bierman, Lee, and Schieman 2018;Lee and Ang 2019;Orr et al 2019). Generally, this body of work demonstrates that women enjoy greater psychological benefits from religious involvement than men.…”

Belief in Supernatural Evil and Mental Health: Do Secure Attachment to God and Gender Matter?

“…In general, these studies report that the beneficial effects of religion on mental health are greater for individuals who belong to marginalized social groups (i.e., women, African Americans, individuals with fewer socioeconomic status). Recently, scholars push this line of research forward by assessing whether the moderating effects of religion are also greater for individuals from marginalized social backgrounds (Bierman, Lee, and Schieman ; DeAngelis and Ellison ; Jung ). The current study adds to this nascent body of research by showing that the extent to which secure attachment to God reduces the positive associations between belief in supernatural evil and mental health problems is greater for women compared to men.…”

“…Although there are some exceptions (Schnabel 2015), one of the consistent findings in sociology of religion is that women score higher than men across a variety of indicators of religiosity including divine beliefs (Stark 2002). More importantly, a growing literature focuses on gender differences in the relationship between religion and mental health, documenting that women tend to derive more psychological benefits from religious involvement than men (Bierman, Lee, and Schieman 2018;Jung 2014;Schieman, Bierman, and Ellison 2010). The current study builds on this stream of inquiry by examining whether the hypothesized protective effects of secure attachment to God against belief in supernatural evil are greater for women than men.…”