Gender Segregation and Its Correlates at Midlife and Beyond

Abstract

We investigated gender segregation and its correlates in the friendships of U.S. adults aged 50–74 years (177 women; 52 men). Gender segregation existed in our midlife sample such that 74% of friend nominations were same gender. Similar to research on other periods of the adult lifespan we found that for women, gender segregation was negatively correlated with competitive activity orientation, positively correlated with beliefs about same-gender peers’ communicative responsiveness and negatively correlated with beliefs about other-gender peers’ communicative responsiveness. Women’s gender segregation was also negatively correlated with masculinity and positively correlated with gender-reference group identity. For men, gender segregation was negatively correlated with beliefs about other-gender peers’ communicative responsiveness and positively correlated with gender-reference group identity. Our results suggest that gender segregation continues to exist at midlife and that there is some continuity in the correlates of gender segregation across adulthood.