Getting Vaccinated Is the Best Thing for Gender Equality, Study Suggests

The research, published in journal Nature Human Behaviour, found declining levels of disease in the United States and the United Kingdom in the past half-century can be related to gains in women's political and social power. It provides the most convincing evidence yet that cultural change might not be solely responsible for improvements in women's rights. In fact, the authors say, we might have a healthier society to thank for leaps in gender equality.

But most importantly, researchers Michael Varnum, from Arizona State University, and Igor Grossman, of Canada's University of Waterloo, found public health initiatives could make a huge difference. Efforts to reduce infectious diseases, such as vaccinations, free health care, public sanitation and water treatment could increase equality between the sexes worldwide.

Typically, gender equality has been understood through a cultural lens—gains have been attributed to social movements like feminism, or specific events, like landmark abortion rights case Roe vs Wade. But this study is among the first to examine equality from an ecological standpoint.

Gender equality was measured by analysing male vs female wage ratios, male vs female pronoun use in published books, female representation in government, and US data on attitudes regarding preference for a male vs. female boss.

So how do these all improve in healthier times? Varnum and Grossman say it's because when their environment is more stable, women—and men—are more likely to adopt what they call "slower life strategies." Basically, if you don't see impending death on the horizon, you're more likely to take the time to get a college degree, travel, and just generally live a happy, non-threatened life before having children.

When the world is more disease-ridden, people begin hooking up earlier, in a subconscious effort to ensure their seed survives. The result: less equality.

"Because earlier mating reduces the ability to pursue education, career and status, women may be less likely to seek or attain positions of economic, social and political power in times where infectious disease is more prevalent," Varnum and Grossman write. For example, in the US they found teen birth rates were higher in states with more incidence of disease.

"None of this is to say that we mostly or always make such decisions consciously," Varnum, an assistant arofessor in Psychology at Arizona State University, told Broadly. "Rather, as in other animal species, we likely have automatic or instinctive responses to certain ecological cues that trigger evolved programs of behavior."

The threat posed by disease showed a more pronounced effect on gender equality than all the other ecological factors considered, including resource scarcity, external threats such as war, and climate stressors. Disease-ridden times were associated with more conformity, authoritarianism, less openness and a reversion to traditional social norms—all bad news for women.

"These findings suggest a novel explanation for variations in how men and women are treated in different time periods—levels of infectious disease," Varnum says. "Our results suggest that efforts to reduce infectious diseases, such as vaccinations, free health care, public sanitation and water treatment, might also increase equality among the sexes."