Gender Differences in Anomia among China's Rural Migrant Workers in the Context of Gender Imbalance.

Most research findings regarding anomia agree that women in the Western society have higher levels of anomia than men. The social role theory has often been employed to explain the gender differences in psychological states, arguing that women's poorer psychological wellbeing is primarily due to their segregated family roles that give little return values, and even if they participate in the sphere outside family, their public roles often involve conflict and tension with their family roles. Such a conclusion is derived from the research in Western industrialized settings. However, contemporary Chinese society is undergoing two major structural changes., gender imbalance and population migration, which may alter not only the social roles occupied by men and women but also their relative power in family. In such a social context, the current paper aims to explore whether there exist gender differences in anomia among rural migrant workers, and if there are, their determinant factors. The data for this study come from the "Rural-Urban Migrants Study in District Y, X City, Fujian" in 2009. The sample surveyed were rural-urban migrants aged 16 years and older with agricultural hukou who had migrated to X City to work. In order to improve the representativeness of the sample, a loose quota sampling method was adopted, and the final sample had 1,507 participants. Multivariate linear regression analysis of the data has produced the following findings about the rural migrant workers: First, men have higher levels of anomia than women. Second, the unmarried have a higher level of anomia than the married, with the older unmarried being worse, but there is no gender difference in the influence of marital status on anomia. Third, education, career, migration time, employment and other instrumental social roles and characteristics related to supporting family have a significant influence on anomia only among men. Fourth, resource-oriented social participation has a significant influence on anomia only among men, but emotion-oriented social participation has a significant influence on anomia only among women. Fifth, chronic diseases have a significant influence on anomia only among men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]