The influence of gender equality policies on gender inequalities in health in Europe

Abstract

Few studies have addressed the effect of gender policies on women's health and gender inequalities in health. This study aims to analyse the relationship between the orientation of public gender equality policies and gender inequalities in health in European countries, and whether this relationship is mediated by gender equality at country level or by other individual social determinants of health. A multilevel cross-sectional study was performed using individual-level data extracted from the European Social Survey 2010. The study sample consisted of 23,782 men and 28,655 women from 26 European countries. The dependent variable was self-perceived health. Individual independent variables were gender, age, immigrant status, educational level, partner status and employment status. The main contextual independent variable was a modification of Korpi's typology of family policy models (Dual-earner, Traditional-Central, Traditional-Southern, Market-oriented and Contradictory). Other contextual variables were the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), to measure country-level gender equality, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For each country and country typology the prevalence of fair/poor health by gender was calculated and prevalence ratios (PR, women compared to men) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed. Multilevel robust Poisson regression models were fitted. Women had poorer self-perceived health than men in countries with traditional family policies (PR = 1.13, 95%CI: 1.07-1.21 in Traditional-Central and PR = 1.27, 95%CI: 1.19-1.35 in Traditional-Southern) and in Contradictory countries (PR = 1.08, 95%CI: 1.05-1.11). In multilevel models, only gender inequalities in Traditional-Southern countries were significantly higher than those in Dual-earner countries. Gender inequalities in self-perceived health were higher, women reporting worse self-perceived health than men, in countries with family policies that were less oriented to gender equality (especially in the Traditional-Southern country-group). This was partially explained by gender inequalities in the individual social determinants of health but not by GEM or GDP.

Unintended Consequences of Gender Equality Promotion in Swedish Multicultural Contraceptive Counseling: A Discourse Analysis

“…Women are usually described as being particularly vulnerable due to gendered power structures (Gavriilidis et al, 2014). Regardless of whether empirical studies indicate that health outcomes are improved as a result of an increase in gender equality perspectives (Palència et al, 2014), or whether no or only ambiguous effects are seen (Kuhlmann & Annandale, 2012;Påfs et al, 2015;Payne, 2014;Sörlin, Lindholm, Ng, & Ohman, 2011), a predominant hypothesis is nevertheless that a society experiencing "true gender equality, with a simultaneous expansion of both men and women into previously gender-segregated spheres" (Backhans et al, 2007(Backhans et al, , p. 1902 will witness a gender-equal distribution in terms of health outcomes (Månsdotter & Deogan, 2016). Scholars in the field appear to agree upon the overall objective: that increased gender equality is a much desirable component of a well-functioning reproductive welfare system (Allwood, 2013).…”

(De)Gendering Older Patients: Exploring Views on Aging and Older Patients in Romanian General Practitioners

“…As an important implication for practice, health communication workshops for GPs should be organized to address issues such as acknowledging gender differences between aging women and men, but deceasing gender inequality among older patients. This may represent a step forward towards tackle health inequalities as well as gender inequalities among Romanian pensioners in particular, but also between countries in what concerns implementing active aging policies (Lassen & Moreira, 2014) and gender equality policies (Palència et al, 2014).…”

“…Nevertheless, active aging policy recommendations (Lassen & Moreira, 2014) might not be easily integrated in busy medical schedules and ideas about active aging that might be accepted in Western contexts may not be popular in Eastern European contexts (Craciun, 2016). Furthermore, older patients may be the target of double stereotyping and discrimination in terms of both age (Levy, 2003) and gender (Palència, 2014). The present article seeks to add to existing literature on aging representations in medical personnel (Liu, Norman, While, 2013;Walter, Flick, Neuber, Fischer, Hussein, Schwartz, 2010) and experiences of general practitioners with older patients (Craciun & Flick, 2015;Craciun, 2016;Flick, Garms-Homolova, Rönsch, 2012) by exploring how the gender of general practitioners plays a role in their aging representations and how they perceive older women versus older men as patients.…”

Distribución mundial de la población con discapacidades en relación con los patrones geográficos del desarrollo humano

“…Es decir, estados que, discapacidades al margen, presentan un alarmante grado de emergencia social lastrado por años de guerras, crisis alimentarias, sanitarias, educativas, políticas y ambientales. Al otro extremo de este mundo mayoritario, se sitúan buena parte de los países llamados «desarrollados», cuyos bajos niveles de años vividos con discapacidad contrastan con las dispares políticas sociales y de atención a la dependencia que se llevan a cabo en cada uno de ellos (Rodríguez, 2011;Palència et al, 2014). Es evidente, sin embargo, que, bajo esta distribución de años vividos con discapacidad, existe un claro paralelismo con la prevalencia de personas con discapacidad, aunque bastante matizada según cual sea la fuente de información y/o el grado de envejecimiento de la población del país.…”

“…Esta distribución geográfica desigual permite reflexionar acerca de la relación entre género y discapacidad, pues existen estudios regionales que se han centrado en los aspectos asociados a determinados tipos de patologías y a los hábitos de vida diferenciales entre mujeres y hombres que inciden en distintas edades en la prevalencia de la minusvalía (Crimmins et al, 2010). Existen también trabajos como Palència et al (2014) que, atendiendo a las diferentes políticas familiares y de género en la Unión Europea, miden cuantitativamente el estado general de salud de las poblaciones. Para ello, consideran variables como el sexo, la edad, el lugar de nacimiento, el nivel de estudios, el estado civil y la relación con la actividad.…”