Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men.

ABSTRACT: Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women's worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries. We examined this through a random-effects meta-analysis on cortical thickness and surface area differences between adult healthy men and women, including a meta-regression in which country-level gender inequality acted as an explanatory variable for the observed differences

SUBMITTER: Zugman A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10193926 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature