As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: Gender-Role Attitudes and Late-Life Cognition
Open accessAbstract
Some studies have found that women outperform men in episodic memory after midlife. But is this finding universal, and what are the reasons? Gender differences in cognition are the result of biopsychosocial interactions throughout the life course. Social-cognitive theory of gender development posits that gender roles may play an important mediating role in these interactions. We analyzed country differences in the gender differential in cognition after midlife using data from individuals age 50 and above ( N = 226,661) from 27 countries. As expected, older women performed relatively better in countries characterized by more equal gender-role attitudes. This result was robust to cohort differences as well as reverse causality. The effect was partially mediated by education and labor-force participation. Cognition in later life thus cannot be fully understood without reference to the opportunity structures that sociocultural environments do (or do not) provide. Global population aging raises the importance of understanding that gender roles affect old-age cognition and productivity.
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For Episodic memory, there is a female advantage regardless of the type of memory task (verbal episodic, immediate and delayed word recall, object location); effect sizes ranged from SMD = 0.23 to 0.31.
“For Episodic memory, there is a female advantage regardless of the type of memory task (verbal episodic, immediate and delayed word recall, object location); effect sizes ranged from SMD = 0.23 to SMD = 0.31 (Asperholm, Högman, et al., 2019; Bonsang et al., 2017; Silverman et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Bonsang et al., 2017
Two studies that investigated Semantic memory (category fluency) indicated that there is a male advantage.
“By contrast, two studies that investigated Semantic memory (category fluency) indicated that there is a male advantage (Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Bonsang et al., 2017
For Episodic memory, sex differences favoring women appear to be larger in countries with higher living conditions (Asperholm, Nagar, et al., 2019; Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2017), although one study that examined object-location memory did not find such an association (Silverman et al., 2007).
“For Episodic memory, sex differences favoring women appear to be larger in countries with higher living conditions (Asperholm, Nagar, et al., 2019; Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2017), although one study that examined object-location memory did not find such an association (Silverman et al., 2007).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Bonsang et al., 2017
For Semantic memory (category fluency), analyzed in the old analyses, both studies indicated that the male advantage is smaller in countries with higher living conditions (Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2014).
“For Semantic memory (category fluency), analyzed in the old analyses, both studies indicated that the male advantage is smaller in countries with higher living conditions (Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2014).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Bonsang et al., 2017
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Sex and gender differences in cognitive resilience to aging and Alzheimer's disease
Arenaza‐Urquijo, E. M., Boyle, R., Casaletto, K., Anstey, K. J., Vila‐Castelar, C., Colverson, A., Palpatzis, E., Eissman, J. M., Kheng Siang Ng, T., Raghavan, S., et al. (2024) · Alzheimer's & Dementia · doi:10.1002/alz.13844 · Cited by 223 · see citing works
What did you do yesterday? A meta-analysis of sex differences in episodic memory.
Asperholm, M., Högman, N., Rafi, J., & Herlitz, A. (2019) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000197 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox
Herlitz, A., Hönig, I., Hedebrant, K., & Asperholm, M. (2025) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231202685 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
“By contrast, two studies that investigated Semantic memory (category fluency) indicated that there is a male advantage (Bonsang et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2014).”
InfluentialAsperholm, M., Nagar, S., Dekhtyar, S., & Herlitz, A. (2019) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0214945 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
- Authors
- Bonsang, E., Skirbekk, V., & Staudinger, U. M.
- Affiliations
- Laboratoire d’Economie de Dauphine, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL Research University
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NO)
- Columbia University (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2017-07-24
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1201-1213
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2738311622
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6
- FWCI
- 9.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- basepub.dauphine.fr
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Base Institutionnelle de Recherche de l'université Paris-Dauphine (BIRD) (University Paris-Dauphine) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Roles and Identity Studies
- Keywords
- gender role attitudes, late-life cognition, gender differences in cognition, episodic memory, cross-national differences, labor force participation, aging, older women
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Europe, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Sex Factors, Social Environment, Femininity, Masculinity, Memory, Episodic
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