A study on the effect of fulfilling hegemonic masculine norms on men's health across regions

<p>The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect that fulfillment of traditional masculine gender norms has on men’s health (self-rated health) across different regions of the world. Regions include Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and English speaking countries (United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain).The masculine constructs used are derived from Mahalik’s (2005) Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory and include risk-taking, dominance, disdain for homosexuality, power over women, pursuit of status, and self-reliance. These concepts were then applied to questions asked in the World Values Survey (n=32,183) and a scale for adherence to each norm was calculated for every individual. Binary logistic regression analysis was conducted for each region to explore if higher adherence to each constructs resulted in a higher self-rated health score. Results show that adherence to constructs are associated with better health in some regions and worse health in others. Furthermore, not every construct was statistically significant in each region or to the same degree. While previous research suggests that fulfilling norms such as risk-taking and dominance will always decrease men’s health, this study found that in some cases, health increased. This suggests a much more nuanced picture of gender norms and health that is influenced greatly by geography.</p>

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Public Service Management

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Philbrick, Deborah M

• masculinity
• self-rated health
• gender norms
• world values survey
• CMNI

Repository record dc:identifier

https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/179

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:via.library.depaul.edu:etd-1184