Moving beyond Categorical Gender in Studies of Risk Aversion and Anxiety

Abstract

Concepts such as risk aversion and anxiety have received renewed attention in various strands of gender and politics research. Most contemporary scholars suggest that gender gaps in this area are related to social norms and stem from social learning rather than from inherent gender traits. Very few, however, elaborate on the gender variable to reach a fuller understanding of the dynamics at work. In this study, we examined gender gaps in levels of anxiety, an area closely related to risk aversion, and we applied a combination of categorical measures of gender distinguishing between “woman, “man,” and “other” and scales capturing grades of femininity and masculinity in individuals. We label this approach fuzzy gender, and we suggest that it can be used to advance research in our field. The key finding is an interaction effect between categorical measures of gender and fuzzy gender: The more female characteristics in women, the higher the levels of anxiety. Moreover, there is no difference in levels of anxiety between men and women with few female characteristics. The data used draw from a large-scale survey among Swedish citizens in 2013.

Pregnant under the pressure of a pandemic: a large-scale longitudinal survey before and during the COVID-19 outbreak

“…In previous work on women's selfreported feelings of worry in Sweden, the term 'worry' ('oro'), was used as an operational definition of anxiety. 29,30 However, it is notable that our measures are not validated scales for the medical term of anxiety, which is a concept often used in the literature we cite above. 31 Views of the coronavirus and its consequences are here reported in three ways.…”

The COVID‐19 pandemic and government responses: A gender perspective on differences in public opinion

“…Future research should also try to decipher the (causal) mechanisms that could explain the gender gap in assessing the two sexes’ preferred levels of anti‐COVID‐19 measures. Previous research has tried to explain women's higher risk aversion, for example, by their increased sensitivity to risk, differences in social status, and gendered practices with regard to social norms (Slovic, 1999; Wägnerud, Solevid, & Djerf‐Pierre, 2019). Future studies could try to examine which (combination) of these (and possibly other) factors may explain gendered differences in opinions concerning the public COVID‐19 response.…”

“…Based on these gendered norms and roles, the meaning of risk differs between men and women (Booth, Cardona-Sosa, & Nolen, 2014). Hence, studies suggest that women feel more vulnerable to violence such as rape, which sensitizes them and increases their sensitivity toward other risks, too (Hollander, 2001;Slovic, 1999;Wägnerud, Solevid, & Djerf-Pierre, 2019). Moreover, women, in the aggregate, seem to care more about risks such as environmental problems, in particular, when these risks pose a direct threat to their health and that of their families (Bord & O'Connor, 1997).…”

Gender and Health: Beyond Binary Categorical Measurement

“…The analytic potential of measuring gradational gender alongside categorical gender identification has remained largely unrealized. Recent studies suggest that gradational gender identification measures can reveal information about social attitudes related to political behavior, such as believing that women face job discrimination (Bittner and Goodyear-Grant 2017; see also Wängnerud, Solevid, and Djerf-Pierre, forthcoming), that are masked by categorical gender measures alone. We demonstrate that similar gains can be made by exploring gradational gender in conjunction with health.…”