1. Gender inequalities
in health
Week 18
Sociology of Health and Illness

2. Recap
• Thought about how health and illness are
structured by society
• Considered the ‘sick
role’, medicalisation, surveillance
medicine and ‘lay’ understandings of
health
• Considered different explanations about
the impact of social class on health

3. Outline
• Consider the evidence for an association
between gender and health
• Look at completing explanations
– Biological
– Social
– Structural

4. Gender Differences
• Gender differences in health are often
related to the maxim:
– Women get sicker but men die quicker
• Some evidence of this, but complex
picture

5. Mortality Difference
• In the UK, women generally life longer
than men (National Statistics online)
• Life expectancy
at birth:
by sex in the UK

6. Health care usage
• More women than men consult their GP
National Statistics online
25
Males
Females
20
• Consultations
15
with an NHS GP 10
by sex and age 5
2001/02
0
0-4 5-15 16-44 45-64 65-74 75 and over

7. Limiting illness
• Other statistics give a different picture
National Statistics online
• 2001 Census
People in
private
households
with a long-term
illness

8. Gender differences
• What do you think might account for the
different levels of gender differences in the
3 areas:
–Mortality
–Health care usage
–Morbidity

9. Explaining
Gender Differences
• There are 3 different groups of
explanations:
– Biological
– Social Roles
– Structural factors

10. Biological Explanations
• Biological explanations focus on genetic
and physiological differences
– Male and female bodies are different
• But mortality and morbidity gaps change
over time and between places
• So this does not see to be a
sufficient explanation

11. Social Roles
• The construction of normative ideas about
masculinity and femininity has implications
for health
– Different risk behaviours
• Alcohol, smoking
• Traffic Accidents major case of
young male death
– Gendered work
• Occupational risks, domestic labour, unregulated
markets

12. • Do you think women and men’s lifestyles
and work can account for gendered
differences?

13. Social Roles
• Social relationships are also gendered
– Women’s responsibility for ‘care’ includes
maintaining the family’s health
– Women’s roles in the family and community
• Older single men more vulnerable to isolation

14. Social Roles
• Gendered roles in reporting
– Women and men are socialised to experience
bodily sensations differently
• Women say how they feel, men report physical
sensations
– Men may be more reluctant to seek medical
advice

15. • Do you think there are gendered
differences in the experiences of bodily
sensations?
• If so, how might this impact on health?

16. Social Roles
• Gendered diagnosis
– Women and men may get different diagnosis
• Psychiatric disorder rather than Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome
– Differences found in the prescription of drugs
– Differences found in treatment

17. Patriarchal medicine?
• Women’s bodies are deemed to be
inherently pathological
– Defined by their unstable reproductive bodies
• The medicalisation of
menstruation, pregnancy and menopause
leads to higher health care usage
– Removing appointments related to
reproduction evens out the statistics

18. Structural factors
• Material circumstances make a different to
health outcomes
• Differences between men and women
– Power and resources in the home can leave women
disadvantaged
• Feminization of poverty
– Differences between women
– Intersection with social class

19. Summary
• Considered the relationship between
gender and health
• Gendered roles and relationships have an
important impact on health
• This intersects with other areas of social
disadvantage

20. Next week
• Continue to consider health inequalities by
focusing on ethnicity
• Look at explanations for ethnic differences
and experiences of health patterns
• What impact does racism have?