Sex Differences in Health: Evidence and Explanations 381health benefits to women than to men, and
one reason is that there are health costs to in-
volvement in social networks for women.Gender-Related Traits
The last social role explanation for sex dif-
ferences in morbidity and mortality involves
gender-related traits. Gender-related traits
include agency, unmitigated agency, commu-
nion, and unmitigated communion. These
traits could be linked to some of the previ-
ously mentioned social role explanations.
For example, unmitigated agency is related
to feelings of superiority and invulnerabil-
ity, which would promote risky behavior,
whereas unmitigated communion would be
related to having overly nurturant roles.
A body of research has linked gender-
related traits to health (Helgeson, 1994c).
Although the hope was that androgyny, the
combination of agency and communion,
would be the best predictor of health, research
has shown that agency alone is the best pre-
dictor of psychological well-being. Over-
all, agency has been associated with greater
perceived health, fewer physical symptoms,
reduced psychological distress, reduced psy-
chiatric problems, and better physical health
(Ghaed & Gallo, 2006; Helgeson, 1994c).
Agency also has been linked to a variety of
good health practices, including physical ac-
tivity, healthy eating, and good dental hygiene
(Danoff-Burg, Mosher, & Grant, 2006). By
contrast, communion is typically unrelated
to psychological or physical health (Ghaed &
Gallo, 2006; Helgeson, 1994c). Thus, some
of men’s lower morbidity rates compared to
women may be explained by the male gender-
related trait of agency, but women’s higher
morbidity rates cannot be linked to the female
gender-related trait of communion.
The distinctions between agency and
unmitigated agency and between communionsleep and did not eat properly when taking
care of others. Women also reported they were
more likely to catch others’ illnesses and did
not take care of themselves when they were ill
(i.e., continued with chores, did not get proper
rest). Married women suffered more of these
problems than married men, and the differ-
ences were even greater when the people had
children. This is because married women, es-
pecially mothers, have greater nurturant role
obligations. Among married couples without
children, 14% of men and 21% of women said
they were unable to rest when they were sick;
among married couples with children, 16% of
men and 44% of women said they were unable
to rest when they were sick. Among unmarried
individuals who lived alone, there were no sex
differences in these nurturant role problems.
Nurturant role problems, in particular the in-
ability to rest when ill, were associated with
poor physical health and accounted for most
of the sex differences in physical health.
The nurturant role hypothesis has not
gone without criticism. For example, as you
will see in Chapter 11, married women are
healthier than single women, which would
seem to contradict the nurturant role hy-
pothesis because married women have more
nurturant roles. Women with seemingly
more role obligations, such as women who
work and women who have children, report
less illness and less disability.
How can these contradictory ideas be
reconciled? Are nurturant roles related to
less illness or more illness among women?
One possibility is that nurturant roles lead to
more illness but also to lessreportingof ill-
ness. People who have more nurturant role
responsibilities may be sick more often but
seek health care less often. Thus the nur-
turant role hypothesis is a viable explanation
for women’s higher rates of morbidity com-
pared to men. As you will see in Chapter 11,
marriage and social networks confer fewerM10_HELG0185_04_SE_C10.indd 381 6/21/11 8:54 AM