Do men grieve differently than women? A cross-cultural analysis

Abstract

Objective: This study examined how men cope with bereavement in both a masculine (Ireland) and a feminine (The Netherlands) society, according to Hofstede’s (2010) cultural dimensions. It was expected that: 1) in the masculine society we would find a more restoration-oriented way of grieving for men in comparison to women; 2) in the feminine society there would be a more balanced way of grieving (LO/RO) amongst both men and women, compared to men and women in the masculine society. Method: 196 participants were examined. Participants from Ireland consisted of 71 females and 44 males, and from The Netherlands there were 40 females and 41 males. Recruiting participants was done from March until June 2020 by contacting key institutions and professionals in the field of grief. Besides that the online survey was published on social media. Adapted English and Dutch versions of the IDWL were used to assess the degree to which bereaved people engage in the coping processes of LO and RO. A two-way ANCOVA adjusting for age and education was performed to analyse both hypothesis Results: A significant main effect of gender was found. There was no statistically significant main effect of culture or significant interaction effect between culture and gender. Conclusion: Results suggest that men and women differ in the way they grieve regardless of their culture. On average, men were more Restoration-oriented, although women were not loss-oriented.