A Note on the Trend in Sex Differences in Psychological Distress.

Recent studies have shown that sex differences in psychological distress have declined over the past several decades. Most commonly, the decline is attributed to increases in women's participation in the labor force, which is thought to have improved the mental health of women while reducing the mental health of men (i.e., husbands). Our paper examines the effect of changes in men's employment patterns during the past two decades. The findings show that declines in men's employment are as important as increases in women's employment in accounting for the sex trend in psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]