Abstract
Clinical observations and research suggest a female preponderance in major depressive disorder. However, it is unclear whether a similar gender difference is found for the reporting of depressive symptoms in non-clinical populations. The present meta-analysis was conducted to address this issue. We searched for published papers targeting non-clinical populations in which the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used. Eighty-four papers (91 studies) published between 1977 and 2014 were included in the final meta-analysis, which comprised 23,579 males and 29,470 females. Females in the general population reported higher level of depressive symptoms than males (d = -0.187, corresponding to 1.159 points in the 21-item BDI). This pattern was not found to influence by years of publication, socioeconomic status, or version of the BDI used. Using age group as a moderator, studies with adolescents and young adults were found to show a smaller effect size than studies with older participants. Our results appear to confirm the “female preponderance” in the level of self-report depressive symptoms in the general population, and support the social gender role theory in explaining gender difference over biological susceptibility theory and evolutionary theory.
Highlights
While results of several large-scale studies seem to suggest a higher level of depressive symptoms in females than males in the general population (Nolen-Hoeksema et al, 1999; Koivumaa-Honkanen et al, 2004; Aalto et al, 2012; Lopez Molina et al, 2014), consistent results are not always reported (Hammen and Padesky, 1977; Kim et al, 2011)
We investigated whether gender difference in the level of depressive symptoms may be influenced by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) version used (English vs. non-English; for English version: BDI-I vs. BDI-II)
Based on the age range of the participants and the sampling approach used, the studies were classified into five groups, adolescents (13 studies), young adults, middle-aged adults (30–50 year old, five studies), older adults, and general population aged above 13 years (15 studies)
Summary
While results of several large-scale studies seem to suggest a higher level of depressive symptoms in females than males in the general population (Nolen-Hoeksema et al, 1999; Koivumaa-Honkanen et al, 2004; Aalto et al, 2012; Lopez Molina et al, 2014), consistent results are not always reported (Hammen and Padesky, 1977; Kim et al, 2011). Three representative theories purport to explain this gender difference in the level of depressive symptoms in the general population. Females may become increasingly dissatisfied with their own physical appearances due to increased pressure for mate selection, and as a result are more likely to become depressed when their appearances fall short of the ideal (Buss, 2003). All of these theories have been elaborated extensively (Weissman et al, 1993), but a direct comparison between them has not been carried out
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