Discrimination and Gender: An Umbrella Review of Psychological Evidence

TL;DR

This review explores how gender discrimination affects mental and physical health, highlighting the need for public health strategies to address these issues.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of psychological evidence on gender discrimination's impact on health outcomes.

Findings

Gender discrimination is linked to mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

Discrimination affects physical health, including cardiovascular outcomes and maternal morbidity.

Professional functioning is impaired due to gender-based inequalities in pay and promotion.

Abstract

Public health relevance—How does this work relate to a public health issue?
Psychological mechanisms driving gender-based discrimination might function as population-level determinants of mental and physical health.Collecting systematic evidence on these mechanisms can guide the development of prevention and intervention strategies aligned with public health priorities.

Psychological mechanisms driving gender-based discrimination might function as population-level determinants of mental and physical health.

Collecting systematic evidence on these mechanisms can guide the development of prevention and intervention strategies aligned with public health priorities.

Public health significance—Why is this work of significance to public health?
Discrimination-related mental consequences create substantial, yet preventable, burdens on healthcare systems around the world.Addressing the psychological grounds is needed to promote health equity and to mitigate avoidable inequalities.

Discrimination-related mental consequences create substantial, yet preventable, burdens on healthcare systems around the world.

Addressing the psychological grounds is needed to promote health equity and to mitigate avoidable inequalities.

Public health implications—What are the key implications or messages for practitioners, policy makers and/or researchers in public health?
Policy and practice require integrated approaches aimed to target cognitive, emotional and behavioral dynamics underlying discriminations.Advancing research needs rigorous, comparable and intervention-oriented designs, in order to inform effective public health actions.

Policy and practice require integrated approaches aimed to target cognitive, emotional and behavioral dynamics underlying discriminations.

Advancing research needs rigorous, comparable and intervention-oriented designs, in order to inform effective public health actions.

Gender discrimination is a pervasive and multifaceted phenomenon rooted in cognitive, emotional, and social mechanisms that operate across individual, interpersonal, and structural levels. This umbrella review synthesizes systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between 2013 and 2024 examining the relationship between gender, stereotypes, and discrimination. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, searches were conducted across PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science, yielding 22 eligible reviews after screening 684 records. Thematic synthesis identified two overarching domains: manifestations of discrimination and health and professional outcomes. Discrimination emerged as structural, interpersonal, and implicit, operating through institutional barriers, microaggressions, and stereotyping mechanisms. These dynamics were found to significantly affect mental health, and particularly anxiety, depression, and psychological distress, as well as physical health, including cardiovascular outcomes and maternal morbidity. Professional and social functioning were also impaired, with gender-based inequalities documented in pay, promotion, and role allocation across multiple occupational contexts. Despite consistent evidence of harm, the literature revealed limited consensus in conceptualization and a lack of longitudinal and intervention research. Collectively, findings underscore that gender discrimination constitutes both a public health concern and a systemic social mechanism that shapes individual cognition, emotion, and behaviour, demanding multi-level psychological and policy responses.

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