Trends in the relationship between sex and psychological distress: 1957-1976

In recent years a great deal of interest has developed in the "sex role hypothesis" as a way of understanding the high rates of psychological distress among women in our society. Although this work has been almost entirely cross-sectional, the underlying hypothesis predicts that the relationship between sex and distress should decline as sex roles become more comparable. Basing our analysis on three national surveys and two community surveys spanning the years 1957 to 1976--a period of rapid changes in the roles of women--we document a reduction in the relationship between sex and one indicator of distress, a screening scale of psychophysiological symptoms. Specification analyses show that the increased labor-force participation of women has been responsible for part of this trend. However, there appear to be no relationships between the decline in psychophysiological symptoms and changes in educational attainment, rates of marriage, marital dissolution, or childbearing. (August 1981)