journal of men's health
Volume 6, Issue 2 , Pages 101-104, June 2009

Men, gender and health 2009 – the Norwegian view

Professor of Masculinity and Gender Equality Studies at the Centre for Gender Research University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Article Outline

 

A few years ago, a European study of men in part-time jobs, called ‘Work Changes Gender’, found that quality of life and health reasons were factors behind men's decisions to work reduced hours [1]. Young fathers, especially, wanted more time with their small children, but many met with inadequate regulations and negative reactions in the workplace.

A Nordic follow-up study, ‘Men in Movement’, focused more closely on fathers taking parental leave, and showed positive experiences of the leave period as well as new and more care-oriented definitions of masculinity. Asked what he most wanted to be remembered by, after his death, one man answered, “I want to be remembered for being a good father” [2]. In some cases the social innovation represented by ‘parental leave fathers’, has also been taken up at the organizational level [3]. The trend towards a more relational and caring-oriented masculinity is seen in mainly personal rather than collective ways, however, and it is often hindered by traditional ‘organizational masculinity’ and gender arrangements [4].

Now, a new Norwegian survey focusing on men and gender equality offers new evidence regarding well-being and health. Norway was recently number one in the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index [5], and the evidence may point to more general trends as well.

This representative survey, entitled ‘Gender Equality and Quality of Life’, had 2800 respondents, both men and women, and some 350 variables – representing a considerable increase in detail with regard to gender equality, namely five gender equality dimensions, as well as quality of life, well-being and health questions.

We constructed a broad index containing all of the health-related items, and analysed how it was affected by the gender equality dimensions and background variables. The most positive factors among men were, in rank order, income, gender-equal practices at home, age, and gender equality in childhood. Education and male-dominated couple distribution played no role (or a mixed role according to the aggregated multvariate analysis). Gender-equal attitudes and traditional psychological gender formation had a very weak, but still significantly negative, impact. Among women, the main positive factors were gender-equal practices, traditional gender formation and education, while gender-equal attitudes, income, age, male-dominated couple distribution, and gender equality in childhood had little (or a mixed) effect [6]. The effects on well-being were generally moderate to weak, but significant.

It was men's caring for children that, in particular, scored positively in terms of well-being. Men who had taken longer parental leave, and men who had taken leave on their own, more often reported that they had a close relationship with the child later (confirming other recent research on this point, such as [7]). We also found that mothers of young children were more satisfied with their relationship and with their quality of life, if the man had taken a long parental leave.

A strong norm regarding gender equality at home appeared in the survey. A huge majority of the respondents, men as well as women, wanted caring, housework and provider responsibility at home to be shared equally, even though they were often ambivalent regarding working life quota systems and active state gender equality policies (the men especially). This common emphasis on home norms, beyond differences in politics, confirms other recent surveys and qualitative studies e.g. detailing gender-neutral, quality-of-life related family projects in middle class dual career homes [8], [9].

Practices such as health behaviour and housework sharing are also, gradually, being affected by these normative changes, and although there is still a gap between what men say and what they do in terms of gender equality [10], it is decreasing. Time use is gradually becoming more gender-equal [11], and social psychological studies have shown more balanced decision-making and power-related processes [12]. In our survey, home sphere changes, including a more balanced division of caring and housework tasks, stand in contrast to professional work inertia and renewed segregation. Although the division of tasks at home has changed considerably over the last 20 years, towards more balanced sharing, the proportion of men working with women on an equal footing in professional life has not changed – much to our surprise. When we looked at the reasons for the lack of gender-equal practice in the home, the main factor that emerged was the wage gap between men and women. However, the economic factor was bound up with wider cultural, emotional, and embodied traits. For example, a basic sense of provider responsibility – a cultural variable – to some extent cut through the income and other resource balance variables.

Next, what is meant by ‘organizational masculinity’? A good starting point would be to investigate the concept of being ‘able-bodied’, and how this masculine notion historically informed ideas of health and gender in the formation of modern society, or, rather, misinformed them, according to current research e.g. on handicap [13]. It is primarily men who are able-bodied, soldier material [14], [15]. On a basic level, being able-bodied means not going to the doctor. If able-bodiedness is part of hegemonic masculinity, the chances are that men will be less proactive in terms of health [16], [17]. Men's health behaviour, in this view, can be predicted along the following lines – the closer they are to traditional organisational structures and to the cultural hegemony of able-bodied masculinity, the less interested men are in proactive health measures, with fewer preventive visits to doctors compared to women, and so on.

Today, however, factors such as the increasing education and resources of women, new experiences and tendencies among men, increasing gender equality norms and practices, and others, undermine the traditional ‘women suffer, men die’ pattern [18]. According to this new survey, and in comparison with previous results, men are gradually becoming more aware of well-being and health issues, especially in areas such as couple relationships and private life. The unevenness of this development is understandable if many men are facing relative organizational inertia in their jobs. Gender equality is strongest at home, which is where women's demands primarily become effective – for men. Therefore, new and more ‘relational’ and caring forms of masculinity have a primarily home base, although other bases, such as friendship, are becoming more visible too.

Even if men still remain more reluctant than women to seek professional help for their relationship or marriage problems (and also less likely to initiate divorce), this survey indicates that, over time, this gender gap will decrease. Men's underlying awareness and some of their practices are changing, and, in some senses, approaching those of women. This can be seen as a general trend in line with time use studies, pointing to men and women becoming more similar in terms of activities.

Men's ‘social radar’ in private life seems to be improving, with more of a focus on well-being and health as part of an increasing gender equality. This goes together with greater participation in household tasks, especially caring for children. Among men, as well as women, gender equality at home is now viewed subjectively as a major plus for a couple relationship. In this survey, those who evaluated their relationship equality as poor were almost three times more likely to have considered breakup or divorce.

Some recent studies have indicated that men's reluctance to seek professional help, e.g. marriage counselling, has more to do with the system, and less with the person, than formerly believed. That is, the main barrier against proactive health behaviour is not only located in the man, or in masculine culture, but also, and sometimes primarily, in a system that is not oriented towards men, or that places men in a peripheral role.

Often, the system seems to be on ‘auto pilot’ in these cases, as shown e.g. in work research. An example is kindergartens and schools contacting the mother, not the father. Why call the mother, not the father, when the child is ill? [19]. Why mention fathers in health information regarding birth [20]?

An important finding from the survey is that the man's gender formation is relatively weakly associated with his gender equality performance. That is, across different types of masculinity, and also partly across different equality norms, men are performing more or less gender-equally. Which is most related to health, new forms of masculinity or better gender equality, remains to be seen, but the new evidence often emphasises the latter alternative.

Some health-related items, such as violence, have been highlighted in new research. In the new survey, respondents growing up in gender-equal homes had a far lower chance of violence than those growing up in non-equal homes. In all, 10% of those growing up in gender-equal homes had experienced violence in childhood, compared to 17% in mother-led homes and 27% in father-led homes. The effects were very similar, across gender, class, age and other variables. Like other studies, we found that violence in childhood has effects later in life. Those who had experienced violence in childhood, had a 180% greater chance of problems with aggression later in life, as well as a similar increase in the chances of suffering from depression, and of having been involved in a traffic accident with personal injury. On these points, the picture was very similar among men and women. Childhood violence experiences seem to ‘sit in the body’.

What is new, in this picture, is the strong preventive effect of gender equality in private life, as measured by equal decision-making among the parents, a strong link that appeared across age groups and social levels, and among divorced as well as intact parental couples. Gender-equal decision-making reduced the chance of violence and, thereby, the chance of long-term negative health costs. Likewise, gender-equal conditions in the current (adult) couple raised the chance of relationship satisfaction (among men as well as women), and lowered the chance of violence and conflict. These results are quite different from a view that still sometimes appears in this debate, where more gender equality leads to more violence, since the man's position becomes threatened.

Gender equality is sometimes seen as an ideology-driven concept. However, our results, indicate, instead, that it is mainly a matter of experiences – it works better in personal relationships. It is on the background of their own personal life experiences that most adults today think of gender equality as a good thing in their couple relationships.

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References 

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PII: S1875-6867(09)00040-2

doi:10.1016/j.jomh.2009.04.002

journal of men's health
Volume 6, Issue 2 , Pages 101-104, June 2009

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