School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 201097, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Aug 12;18(16):8539. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18168539.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 has brought upon unprecedented challenges to nearly all people around the globe. Yet, people may differ in their risks of social, economic, and health well-being. In this research, we take a gender-difference approach to examine whether and why women suffered greater emotional and life distress than men at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Using a large nationwide Chinese sample, we found that compared to men, women reported higher levels of anxiety and fear, as well as greater life disturbance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, that women suffered more was partly explained by their higher level of pathogen disgust sensitivity. Our findings highlight the important consequences of gender differences in response to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest that policymakers pay more attention to gender inequalities regarding COVID-19 responses.
新冠疫情的爆发给全球几乎所有人带来了前所未有的挑战。然而，人们在社会、经济和健康福祉方面的风险可能存在差异。在这项研究中，我们采用性别差异的方法来研究在中国新冠疫情爆发的早期阶段，女性是否比男性遭受更大的情绪和生活困扰，以及原因是什么。利用一个大规模的全国性中国样本，我们发现与男性相比，女性在新冠疫情期间报告的焦虑和恐惧水平更高，生活干扰也更大。重要的是，女性遭受的痛苦更多，部分原因是她们的病原体厌恶敏感性更高。我们的研究结果强调了性别差异对新冠疫情威胁的反应所带来的重要后果，并表明政策制定者应更加关注新冠疫情应对方面的性别不平等问题。
