Gendered Myopia

June 23, 2020 1:21 AM

I have read multiple times in German media that women are more frequently myopic than men. Is there any recent-ish study corroborrating that or have they all been parroting each other for the past ~15 years? Asking because I don't want to quote this information if it turns out to be ridiculously outdated.
posted by Omnomnom to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

Best answer: This European study found that "there were no significant differences in the myopia prevalence by gender."
This data suggests that myopia was marginally more common in women in the US in 2010 (54% women vs 46% men).
This French study found that myopia was marginally more common in women than in men.
This study from Spain found no significant difference in myopia rates between men and women.

So it sounds like women may be marginally more likely to be myopic, but not to the degree that most of the studies found it significant.

My entirely-non-scientific hypothesis is that marginally more women are diagnosed because women are somewhat more likely to take care of routine health stuff (i.e. more of them went and got an eye test than their myopic male equivalents), but that is pure speculation (based on watching my mother get regular eye tests the whole time I was growing up vs watching my father reading the paper with a magnifying glass for nearly two years before he would consent to wearing glasses).
posted by terretu at 2:21 AM on June 23, 2020 [10 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you!!
posted by Omnomnom at 2:24 AM on June 23, 2020

Time outdoors reduces myopia. In many cultures, male children might be encouraged to spend more time outdoors, might be assigned more outdoor tasks.
posted by theora55 at 6:00 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

Myopia is partly caused by spending a lot of time indoors and a lot of time looking at things very close to you. These activities used to be a lot more gendered than they are. "Close work" like embroidery used to be notorious for causing myopia, but now we all do close work most of the day. We're doing it right now by looking at our screens. So the distinctions have fallen away.

It's the same reason "nerd" and "glasses" are no longer synonymous. It's not just medicine noticing more cases of myopia, we are a more myopic planet than we used to be.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:37 AM on June 23, 2020 [5 favorites]