Are Male and Female Midlife Crises Different?

While researching her book The Breaking Point: How Today's Women Are Navigating Midlife Crisis, Wall Street Journal columnist Sue Shellenbarger discovered that "women not only undergo bigger changes than men in middle age, but they also by some measures have a more positive attitude about their prospects in life."

One key source was "Turning Points In Adulthood," a chapter in the MacArthur Foundation's "How Healthy Are We? A National Study of Well-Being At Midlife." It shows that men and women are distinctly different in a measure of life fulfillment.

Researchers found that before 50, less women than men feel they have "fulfilled a special dream" in the last five years (24% vs 40%). But after 50, women's fulfillment goes up -- to 36% -- while men's falls to about 28%.

Shellenbarger writes:

The triggers of midlife crisis reflect sex differences, too. Women's midlife crises are more likely than men's to begin with family events or problems, Dr. Wethington says, from a divorce or a parent's death to an extramarital affair, to the realization you haven't met your own standards or goals as a parent.

Whereas male midlife crisis is more likely to be driven by work or career issues, women's turmoil is more likely to be driven by introspection. Women are more likely to attribute their midlife crises to some new insight into themselves through religion, therapy or reflection.

Women are more likely to cite personal health problems as the cause of their midlife crises. This can include worries about slowing down or about losing one's attractiveness, based on the MacArthur Foundation research.

The authors of that study wrote that "major changes or disturbances in (marriage, work, parenting, and family relationships) are triggers of turning points that have a negative impact on them, at least initially."

If so, are there gender differences in these triggers?

Yes.

The researchers summarized earlier work that found that men were far more likely than women to consider a career event to be a "life turning point" (38% vs 17%); education also had a large difference (19% of men considered it a turning point, vs 6% of women). Women were slightly but not significantly ahead of men in considering parenthood or death of a family member to be important in shaping the course of their life.

Another study asked subjects at various stages of adult life to assess the importance of career, marriage, parenthood, and retirement; it found that work always topped men's lists of turning points. Young women selected marriage, while somewhat older women chose parenthood. Only older women thought work was a major life turning point.

Their own study found that women were more likely than men to self-report a turning point -- whether positive or negative -- within the last five years. In particular, women were far more introspective than men:

"Women ... reported significantly more turning points involving changes in how they viewed themselves over the past twelve months and in the last five years. Women were significantly more likely to report discovering something upsetting about themselves, as well as more likely to report discovering something good about themselves."

So whether you call what happens in midlife a "crisis," "reassessment," or "transition," the causes and effects are usually going to be different for men and women.

We'll explore the implications of this as we build LifeTwo.

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* Is there such a thing as a midlife crisis? Some views here and here.