GENDER DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH - ARE THINGS REALLY AS SIMPLE AS THEY SEEM

It is conventional wisdom in medical sociology and social epidemiology that in industrialized societies men die earlier than women, but that women have poorer health than men. A number of explanations for these differences have been postulated and tested (for example, different b iological risks, acquired risks, reporting biases and experiences of h ealth care). Using two recent British data sets we find that the patte rn of sex differences in morbidity is more complicated than the conven tional wisdom often suggests. The direction and magnitude of sex diffe rences in health vary according to the particular symptom or condition in question and according to the phase of the life cycle. Female exce ss is only consistently found across the life span for psychological d istress and is far less apparent, or reversed, for a number of physica l symptoms and conditions. Detailed inspection of papers on gender dif ferences published in the last decade reveals that our findings are no t unique, but that a relatively undifferentiated model of consistent s ex differences has nevertheless continued to predominate in the litera ture. We believe that the topic of gender differences in health warran ts periodic re-examination.