Documents Gustafsson, Per E. 2 results

"Despite increasing awareness of the importance of gender perspectives in health science, there is conceptual confusion regarding the meaning and the use of central gender theoretical concepts. We argue that it is essential to clarify how central concepts are used within gender theory and how to apply them to health research. We identify six gender theoretical concepts as central and interlinked -but problematic and ambiguous in health science: sex, gender, intersectionality, embodiment, gender equity and gender equality. Our recommendations are that: the concepts sex and gender can benefit from a gender relational theoretical approach (ie, a focus on social processes and structures) but with additional attention to the interrelations between sex and gender; intersectionality should go beyond additive analyses to study complex intersections between the major factors which potentially influence health and ensure that gendered power relations and social context are included; we need to be aware of the various meanings given to embodiment, which achieve an integration of gender and health and attend to different levels of analyses to varying degrees; and appreciate that gender equality concerns absence of discrimination between women and men while gender equity focuses on women's and men's health needs, whether similar or different. We conclude that there is a constant need to justify and clarify our use of these concepts in order to advance gender theoretical development. Our analysis is an invitation for dialogue but also a call to make more effective use of the knowledge base which has already developed among gender theorists in health sciences in the manner proposed in this paper."

"Background Several prospective studies have indicated increased risk of developing depressive symptoms in employees who report psychologically demanding and uncontrollable work (job strain). There are diverging findings regarding gender differences in this relationship. The aim was to analyse whether men and women differ with regard to the prospective relationship between adverse psychosocial work environment and depressive symptoms during a 2-year period.Method The Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health cohort based on representative recruitment of working men and women in Sweden was used. 2731 men and 3446 women had answered questions regarding work environment and mental health in 2008 and 2010. Psychological demands, decision authority, age and income as well as depressive symptoms in 2008 were used as predictors of depressive symptoms in 2010.Results Women reported less decision authority at work and their demand level developed more unfavourably than did men's—resulting in increased job strain gap between men and women from 2008 to 2010. The relationship between demand and decision authority (and job strain) on one hand and depressive symptoms on the other hand was not statistically different in men and women.Conclusions Overall, women reported higher levels of job strain than men. In Sweden, job strain was as strongly related to depressive symptoms among men as among women."