ABSTRACT

We advance research on the ‘gendered pandemic’ and its implications for psychological well-being in three important ways. First, we focus on Japan, arguably the most gender-inegalitarian wealthy country. Second, we focus on gender differences in both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Third, we use demographic decomposition tools to evaluate the extent to which observed gender differences in decline in psychological well-being reflect differences in pre-pandemic characteristics, differences in life changes during the pandemic, differences in pandemic-related worry, and differences in men’s and women’s responses to these characteristics and experiences. Results show that decline in both dimensions of psychological well-being was significantly greater for women and that the contributions of differences in relationships were larger than those of differences in composition. We also show that reduction in well-being derived from social interaction was particularly pronounced for women and that gender differences in age patterns of decline in both dimensions of psychological well-being are large.

摘要

我们通过三个重要方式推进“性别流行病”及其对心理健康影响的研究。首先，我们关注日本，它可以说是性别最不平等的富裕国家。其次，我们关注享乐和幸福方面的性别差异。第三，我们使用人口统计分解工具来评估观察到的心理健康下降的性别差异在多大程度上反映了大流行前特征的差异、大流行期间生活变化的差异、大流行相关担忧的差异以及男性的差异。以及女性对这些特征和经历的反应。结果表明，女性心理健康两个维度的下降幅度均显着更大，而且人际关系差异的贡献大于构成差异的贡献。我们还表明，社交互动带来的幸福感下降对于女性来说尤其明显，而且心理幸福感两个维度下降的年龄模式的性别差异很大。