Sex differences in affiliation and instrumentality across adulthood.

Abstract

This dissertation uses data from two large-scale surveys to explore whether men and women become more similar as they age, in terms of affiliation and instrumentality. Specifically, the research tests the hypothesis that sex differences diminish across the lifecourse in such a way that men's and women's orientations toward others (women are more affiliative, men are more instrumental) ultimately converge or cross-over. Although this pattern has not been established conclusively, biological, social, and psychological explanations for it have been proposed. Therefore, the dissertation research also investigates the possibility that age-related sex differences reflect lifecourse changes in the roles of spouse, parent, and employee. Thirty measures that tap three dimensions of affiliation and instrumentality were selected from cross-sectional studies of The Quality of American Life, 1971 and 1978 and Americans View Their Mental Health, 1957 and 1976. For each measure, the means for men and women were calculated separately by age, and the statistical significance of the difference between the means at each age was tested. For eleven selected variables, a series of regressions was also performed to clarify the pattern of sex differences over adulthood. The first regression included age and sex; the second added terms for the interaction of age and sex; the next added indicators for the roles of spouse, parent, and employee; and the last added terms for the interaction of the roles and sex. The expected convergence between men and women in older age did not emerge consistently. Although the findings indicate that women are more affiliative than men, and men more instrumental than women, there is little evidence of systematic change by either sex relative to the other across the lifecourse. Thus, the most important conclusion to derive from this work is that there does not appear to be a universal impetus toward similarity between men and women in later life. However, the suggestion that experience with a role (rather than changes in role) might be related to this phenomenon makes this an important area for future research.