PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER-ROLE IDENTITY IN MENTAL HEALTH : A REVIEW FOCUSING ON JAPANESE CULTURAL ASPECTS

There is a vast amount of literature reporting that women are about twice as likely as men to experience psychological distress, depressive symptoms and major depression. This female predominance for depression is known to be a cross-culturally common phenomenon. Previous studies in this field have predominantly discussed the social and hormonal mechanisms that stimulate affiliative needs for females at puberty. The purpose of this paper is to review the gender differences in depression related to personal gender-role orientation. Furthermore, most of the preceding studies were conducted in western countries. Therefore, this paper focused on the Japanese culture and discussed aspects of cultural differences which may affect the gender differences in mental health and relative social behavior. According to Hofstede\u27s dimension of national culture termed \u27Masculinity-Femininity,\u27 Japan is the most masculine society (male\u27 and female\u27 gender roles were clearly differentiated). It is proposed that future studies would benefit from considering personal and ecological (cultural) gender-role orientation to construct a gender education program as an intervention for depression in children and adolescents