Gender Gaps in Depression Across Europe…
Van de Velde, S., Bracke, P., & Levecque, K. (2010). Gender differences in depression in 23 European countries. Cross-national variation in the gender gap in depression Social Science & Medicine DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.035
I read that phrase so often, that is, that women outnumber men 2:1 in terms of official depression statistics (2010, p.305), that I start to tremble whenever I stumble upon it again. Like, enough already, we already know the dirt but more, we need to know why and how men are seemingly so incredibly resilient to the scourge of the dark mood. The usual response that I formulate is that women are socialised into the sick role and men are socialised into avoiding that sick role. In other words, depression, as a sickness, is associated with femininity and its resistance, with masculinity. That bit of simplistic rubbish is but one piece of the overall puzzle.
In their study, Van de Velde et al. (2010) discuss ‘[c]ross-national variation[s] in the gender gap in depression’ across 23 European countries (p.305). Rather than trying to pin down some of the potential causative factors behind those variations, they seem content to just throw them up in the air and leave them hanging (there). For example, after rabbiting on about the association between stress and depression, they conclude that we still have much to learn about ‘the risk ratio of depression with negative life events and chronic strains’ (2010, p.306). Ditto, they argue that there are big evidence gaps with respect to how culture, family and economic power, et al. (2010, pp.306-307) influence relative gloom levels in men and women.
For the record, Van de Velde et al. (2010) found that:
‘…with the exception of Ireland, Finland and Slovakia, women report significantly higher levels of depression than men do. The gender difference is largest in Portugal and smallest in Ireland. Ukrainian females and Hungarian males report the highest level of depression of their sex… Norwegian females and Norwegian males report the lowest depression levels for each sex…(p.308).’
What Van de Velde et al. (2010) did confirm was that yes, depression is a freakily gendered phenomenon across Europe (p.311). Their findings tilted toward supporting the hypothesis ‘that depressive levels in the majority of European countries most strongly relate to socioeconomic position’ (2010, p.311). However, I found their arguments here to be both confusing and unconvincing. For example, soon after noting that depression rates in women were affected by the availability of childcare (referring to Portugal), they then retreated from that position, conceding that even when childcare was available, women remained more depressed than men (referring to Belgium, France and Sweden) (2010, p.311).
An obvious limitation of a study such as this is that in looking at the big picture stuff, it cannot even begin to address the on-the-ground, relational stuff that might lead us closer to understanding ‘why’ and ‘how’ depression remains predominantly a ‘woman’s complaint’…
Update: Please ignore all of the above. I have just discovered that higher reported rates of depression in women are cellular in origin, and mysteriously linked to a non-human species, the rat (see link, below)…
Blah! Blah! Blah!