Gender, Emotions, and Mental Health in the United States: Patterns, Explanations, and New Directions

Personal Network Size and Social Accompaniment: Protective or Risk Factor for Momentary Loneliness, and for Whom?

“…This finding is noteworthy. Given gender differences in family obligations, expectations about social roles, and network composition, women may experience higher levels of stress and strain that emanate from network ties (“tethering”; Leupp 2019; Simon 2020; Thoits 2011). For example, a larger personal network may reflect more caregiving obligations and other support demands.…”

Managing a Household During a Pandemic: Cognitive Labor and Parents’ Psychological Well-being

“…Given the importance of gender as a social structure (Risman 2004), we expect that the associations between cognitive labor and psychological well-being may also vary by gender. Similar to other forms of domestic labor (Simon 2020), exposure to stress may be greater for mothers given that they are more engaged in the ongoing and time-consuming aspects of cognitive labor (monitoring, anticipating, and planning), whereas fathers are more likely to be engaged in the more controlling and rewarding aspect of cognitive labor—decision-making (Daminger 2019). As such, mothers may be more likely to experience chronic stress given their disproportionate responsibility for the less bounded and more consistent aspects of cognitive labor.…”

“…linked to declines in psychological well-being during the pandemic (Pearlin and Bierman 2013). The negative association between cognitive labor and psychological well-being may be particularly pronounced for mothers; gender and motherhood norms emphasize mothers’ primary responsibility for these tasks (Calarco et al 2020), which may lead mothers to be more exposed to cognitive labor and more vulnerable to it as a stressor (Simon 2020).…”

Educational attainment and emotional well-being in adolescence and adulthood

“…In explaining the gender gap in emotional well-being among adolescents, it is possible that adolescent boys’ relatively more advantaged social position could help explain their better mental health outcomes. Support for this hypothesis is mixed, however, with some studies finding greater vulnerability to stress among women only for stress related to caregiving activities ( Simon, 2020 ). Instead, the gendered response hypothesis receives somewhat more support.…”

“…According to this hypothesis, adult women and adolescent girls react to stressors with internalizing behaviors while adult men and adolescent boys more often react with externalizing behaviors ( Adkins et al, 2009 ). These differences in reaction to stress by gender may be attributable to gender differences in self schema ( Rosenfield, et al, 2005 ) or to emotion norms in the U.S. which prescribe appropriate emotional reactions based on gender ( Simon, 2020 ).…”