Revisiting the Relationships among Gender, Marital Status, and Mental Health

TLDR

Gove’s sex‑role theory of mental illness posits that women’s higher psychological distress stems from societal roles, with marriage being emotionally advantageous for men and disadvantageous for women. The study revisits this theory using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. The authors analyze that dataset to examine how gender and marital status relate to mental health. The analyses show that marriage confers emotional benefits equally to men and women, but marital transitions elicit different types of emotional problems in each gender, underscoring implications for future gender and mental health research.

Abstract

Three decades ago, Gove introduced his sex‐role theory of mental illness, which attributes women’s higher rates of psychological distress to their roles in society. Central to his hypothesis is that marriage is emotionally advantageous for men and disadvantageous for women. This article revisits this topic with data from the National Survey of Families and Households. The analyses indicate that the emotional benefits of marriage apply equally to men and women, but that men and women respond to marital transitions with different types of emotional problems. The implications of these findings for future research on gender and mental health are discussed.