Mental health has become a hot topic, one that is increasingly talked about in the media, is more present in public measures and is established as one of the population’s concerns. Even so, there is still much to do in this area. As mental health professionals often complain, it is not enough to just make promises and talk about the issue, we must also invest in improving it—Spain is still far below average in psychologists per inhabitant. But, in addition, you have to understand all the nuances that are connected to it. A very important one is gender.
There is an important point of friction, because women are the ones who, in general terms, have worse numbers in emotional health, one of the pillars of mental well-being. «Emotional health is one of the great challenges of our time in Spain – and in Europe –», explains Marieta Jiménez, president of ClosinGap. Although it is no longer taboo, she notes, there is still “work to be done.”
ClosingGap has just presented its report ‘Opportunity cost of the gender gap in emotional health’, prepared in collaboration with Merck, in which they have studied not only this divergence between the emotional health of women and men but also what it means in social and economic terms. It is a somewhat invisible gap, which makes, they believe, translating it into figures even more important. “What is not quantified does not exist,” summarizes Jiménez.
In Spain, the general data are not particularly optimistic. 74.7% of the population believes that the mental health of Spanish society has worsened in recent years, according to a study by the Confederation of Mental Health in Spain. And, although mental health and emotional health are not exactly the same, as they remember in the ClosinGap study, they are very related. Emotional well-being is the basis of good mental health. Although Spain is in an intermediate position in the European ranking of emotional well-being, it is in prominent positions—it is the 6th country—when emotional distress is measured.
As the expert explains, we must “understand that emotional discomfort goes beyond a ‘bad streak’ or ‘glass’ generations.” It is a problem with many nuances and, in turn, many effects. It can even be converted into something measurable on a tangible level. It has a direct impact on the economy: according to the study’s calculations, depression and anxiety represent a loss of 18,590.4 million euros for the Spanish economy.
Of these figures, 37% are connected to the gender gap of emotional distress: that is 6,872 million euros each year. Spanish women present worse figures in emotional well-being (54.6% compared to 67.4%) and discomfort (27.3% compared to 17.5%) compared to Spanish men.
Why is there a gender gap?
Paradoxically, women are “more proactive” when it comes to taking care of their emotional health, as the report points out, and they are more open to ideas such as self-care. Is this contradictory? “It is a more multifaceted question,” says Jiménez. «They are more aware of it, but they do not find the support they need to close this gender gap. “We see it in younger people too,” she adds.
But why are women more affected? There is no simple answer, but to understand it you have to open the focus to the reality of society. That is, the mental and emotional health gender gap exists both in parallel and interconnected with the other gender gaps that analyzes have identified in many other areas.
“There is no real co-responsibility, we have fewer opportunities for development or we dedicate less time to ourselves to take care of our loved ones,” summarizes Jiménez. “This is unacceptable and unsustainable,” he adds. Women, recalls the expert, still assume a greater burden of care and it is on them that the conciliation effort still weighs more. “If the more than 400,000 women who worked part-time to care for the family had lengthened their workday to 40 hours, up to 12 billion additional euros could have been generated, 1.1% of GDP,” exemplifies Jiménez. .
The psychotherapist Luis Muiño establishes the origins of this gap, as he indicated in the presentation of the results of the study, already in what girls are told in their early years. “Gender differences in anxiety and depression have their origin in the fact that since childhood, women are required to endure the emotional burden of others, to find justification for other people’s actions, even if they cause discomfort,” he points out. .
Additionally, the mental burden that women take on—all that invisible work of managing what should be done by whom or what should be done—also impacts their well-being. “Women have a greater involvement in domestic tasks and in caring for children and family members, leaving aside time for rest, leisure or self-care, in general,” says Jiménez. Of course, this burden not only impacts the mental health of Spanish women. It has also appeared in the other reports that ClosinGap has carried out to try to understand the gender gaps in Spanish society.
“The lack of co-responsibility is a ‘troll’ that appears in most of our reports,” summarizes the expert. Achieving it will improve the situation of women and society. “It must be a priority for families, companies and institutions,” she insists, recalling that not only does it have a profound personal cost for women, but it also has an impact on their environment, society and the economy.
This greater emotional discomfort further hinders women’s access to the labor market and their permanence in it. As the study recalls, 63.1% of sick leave due to mental and behavioral disorders in 2021 were women, a figure that, as Jiménez points out, “is not acceptable.” Their absences are also longer – 24.4 million days for them compared to 13.6 million for them – and have a greater impact on their careers. For the economy, the study recalls, not addressing this gender gap in sick leave means losing 1,642 million euros per year.
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