Gender and Health Comprehensive Exam
October 19, 2004
Answer two of the following three questions:
1.Does depression differ by gender and, if so, why? In answering this question, please review the prominent theory and accumulated empirical evidence on the association between gender and depression and the possible mechanisms underlying this association. After doing so, answer the following two additonal questions: Is this observed gender difference real or an artifact due to measurement bias? Does this pattern extend to other types of mental illness (e.g., psychological problems, paranoid schizophrenia)? Does the association between gender and depression remain the same across the life course?
2.Men have higher rates of mortality, but women have higher rates of morbidity. Explore this paradox. Your response may include but is not limited to the following issues. What is the evidence for higher mortality of men? For what types of diseases does this hold true? In what circumstances do women have greater mortality? How does this pattern change over the life course? Why do women have higher morbidity? How do studies measure morbidity? For what diseases do men have greater morbidity? What are the social causes of the gender differences in mortality and morbidity? Your response may include factors such as age, race, education, occupation, earnings, social roles, physician utilization, etc. Do social factors fully account for these differences? Present research evidence for all theoretical explanations.
3.The health effects of some life course transition or event often vary sharply by gender. Choose one of the following examples—puberty, divorce, the transition to parenthood, retirement—and explain the connection between this experience and physical and mental health, how this connection differs by gender, and why gender moderates this connection. Please draw on both theory and empirical evidence from the relevant literatures in formulating your response.
Answer one of the following two questions:
1.Summarize some of the major findings in the literature on the physical and mental health benefits or deficits of intimate relationships (e.g., marriage) for men and women. What aspects of such intimate relationships have been identified as important mediators of the association between intimacy and health? In very general terms, do you think the studies from which such findings emerge are methodologically sound?
2.Review the major findings in the literature on the temporal sequence of the associations between marriage and physical and mental health. That is, summarize how the associations between marriage and physical and mental health evolves over the family life course. Do men and women benefit from marriage and intimacy similarly over the family life course? What are some of the explanations that have been offered for any temporal sequencing of the association between intimacy and health that have been observed?