Gender differences in the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to analyse gender differences in COVID-19 vaccination intentions. Subject and methods PubMed, Web of Science and PsycInfo were searched (November 2020 to January 2021) for studies reporting absolute frequencies of COVID-19 vaccination intentions by gender. Averaged odds ratios comparing vaccination intentions among men and women were computed. Descriptive analyses of the studies were reported. Results Sixty studies were included in the review and data from 46 studies (n = 141,550) were available for meta-analysis. A majority (58%) of papers reported men to have higher intentions to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Meta-analytic calculations showed that significantly fewer women stated that they would get vaccinated than men, OR 1.41 (95% CI 1.28 to 1.55). This effect was evident in several countries, and the difference was bigger in samples of health care workers than in unspecified general population samples. Conclusion This systematic review and meta-analysis found lower vaccination intentions among women than men. This difference is discussed in the light of recent data on actual vaccination rates in different countries.