As for demographic descriptors, should one use the term gender or sex? Which is most correct? I see both used in the literature but find my bias toward the use of gender since ”sex” has multiple interpretations. Interested in hearing from the RG community.
I also stumbled over that question, and it's even a more difficult question for non-native English-speakers like I, I think. What I learned (so far) is following:
in the social context, you would use "gender", whereas in the biological context, you would use "sex". The problem is, that there are so many shades inbetween.
If I would like to report how shopping behaviour is influenced by advertising, I think the context is clearly social, so I would talk about gender differences. If the study is about a physiological/biological measure (size, weight, blood pressure, lung compliance, ...) I think the context is clearly biological, so I would talk about sex differences. It becomes difficult if biological and socials aspects can't be clearly separated. One could already discuss if the context in my shopping/advertising example is purely sociological or if it has biological aspects (or which aspect dominates).
Looking forward what the experts say :)
I, too, am looking forward to a wider discussion. It is said, “Sex sells.” I often wonder if journals like the New England Jornal of Medicine falls victim to this adage? Thank you for your thoughts.
Cheers,
Christopher
I found this article by Tim Newman from MedicanNewsToday to be a fairly informative discussion on the topic: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php. Essentially, it corroborates what Jochen Wilhelm already wrote above.
Dear colleague,
1- Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed.
2- Sex tends to relate to biological differences
Therefore, in scientific writing when you want to express about demographic characteristics use (Gender).
As Eshak touched upon, there is definitely a difference between the term gender and sex. While sex was once considered biologically predetermined - female or male - it has become clear there is a continuum. And regarding gender, one way this is often discussed in the social sciences is by referring to “gender identification.” Thus there could be a question on a survey listing: female, male, unidentified, other, wish not to disclose. Even such entities as Facebook has addressed gender fluidity which options in choosing ones gender. Hope that helps!
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