Sex, marital status, and psychological distress in later life: a comparative analysis.

Some investigators maintain that while married men experience less distress than married women, the opposite may be true for those who are not married. In this instance, women are thought to report fewer symptoms of distress than men. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among gender, marital status, psychological distress and alcohol use in five culturally-diverse groups of older adults: U.S. whites, U.S. blacks, Japanese, Taiwanese and elderly people in the People's Republic of China. We find little evidence of the pattern described above. Instead, the data suggest that being single is equally detrimental for older men and women regardless of the cultural setting.