H6. Gender—Do Women Experience More Stress than Men? Yes
Our data provide evidence that women experience significantly higher stress levels than men during quarantine. These findings support the existing literature on the relationship between gender and stress levels (e.g. Bergdahl & Bergdahl, 2002; Stone et al., 2010), but are contradictory to recent studies on the COVID‐19 outbreak, which found gender to be unrelated to stress levels (Li et al., 2020; Limcaoco et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). However, conclusions from these studies ought to be drawn with caution, as they either focused exclusively on samples within one country (e.g. Wang et al., 2020) or included a small number of participants (e.g. Limcaoco et al., 2020). Women are found to be more family‐oriented and provide a supportive role (Tigani et al., 2011); however, during this highly unprecedented time of quarantine, they are overwhelmed by the need to support their families, and such a commitment is beyond their coping capabilities. Moreover, during the relative isolation, it is women who are more likely to not only take care of their work responsibilities, but also take care of the children and home (Minello, 2020).