Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence
Depressive symptoms are disproportionately high among women and less educated individuals. One mechanism proposed to explain this is the differential vulnerability hypothesis—that these groups experience particularly strong increases in symptoms in response to stressful life events. We identify limi...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publications
2021
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| _version_ | 1797107201244921856 |
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| author | Anderson, LR Monden, CWS Bukodi, E |
| author_facet | Anderson, LR Monden, CWS Bukodi, E |
| author_sort | Anderson, LR |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Depressive symptoms are disproportionately high among women and less educated individuals. One mechanism proposed to explain this is the differential vulnerability hypothesis—that these groups experience particularly strong increases in symptoms in response to stressful life events. We identify limitations to prior work and present evidence from a new approach to life stress research using the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Preliminarily, we replicate prior findings of differential vulnerability in between-individual models. Harnessing repeated measures, however, we show that apparent findings of differential vulnerability by both sex and education are artifacts of confounding. Men and women experience similar average increases in depressive symptoms after stressful life events. One exception is tentative evidence for a stronger association among women for events occurring to others in the household. We term this the “female vulnerability to network events” hypothesis and discuss with reference to Kessler and McLeod’s related “cost of caring” hypothesis. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:12:38Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:a56b8106-ca7a-446c-92cf-b3ee2d71d753 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:12:38Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:a56b8106-ca7a-446c-92cf-b3ee2d71d7532022-07-08T09:37:42ZStressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidenceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:a56b8106-ca7a-446c-92cf-b3ee2d71d753EnglishSymplectic Elements SAGE Publications2021Anderson, LRMonden, CWSBukodi, EDepressive symptoms are disproportionately high among women and less educated individuals. One mechanism proposed to explain this is the differential vulnerability hypothesis—that these groups experience particularly strong increases in symptoms in response to stressful life events. We identify limitations to prior work and present evidence from a new approach to life stress research using the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Preliminarily, we replicate prior findings of differential vulnerability in between-individual models. Harnessing repeated measures, however, we show that apparent findings of differential vulnerability by both sex and education are artifacts of confounding. Men and women experience similar average increases in depressive symptoms after stressful life events. One exception is tentative evidence for a stronger association among women for events occurring to others in the household. We term this the “female vulnerability to network events” hypothesis and discuss with reference to Kessler and McLeod’s related “cost of caring” hypothesis. |
| spellingShingle | Anderson, LR Monden, CWS Bukodi, E Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title | Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title_full | Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title_fullStr | Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title_short | Stressful life events, differential vulnerability, and depressive symptoms: critique and new evidence |
| title_sort | stressful life events differential vulnerability and depressive symptoms critique and new evidence |
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