The Relationship Between Sex Roles, Marital Status, and Mental Illness

TLDR

Women in modern Western societies exhibit higher rates of mental illness than men. The article proposes that marital status, particularly being married, explains this gender disparity. Married women have higher mental illness rates than married men, while in other marital categories women do not have higher rates and may even have lower rates than men.

Abstract

In modern Western societies women have higher rates of mental illness than men. In this article it is suggested that this difference can be attributed to the role of married women. More specifically, it is shown that married women have noticeably higher rates of mental illness than married men. In contrast, it is shown that when single women are compared with single men, divorced women with divorced men, and widowed women with widowed men, these women do not have rates of mental illness that are higher than their male counterparts. In fact, if there is a difference within these marital categories, it is that women have lower rates of mental illness.