Research Essay on Gender Attitudes

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Introduction:

The division of labor in the family has always been contentious (Phillipov, 2008). The man has usually been seen as the household breadwinner, and the role of the woman is to take care of the household (Boehnke, 2011). However, in recent decades, this particular model of family has become less prevalent. In recent years there has been a determined societal shift towards greater gender role equality (Phillipov, 2008). It has become more common for women to be part of the paid labor force and share the burden of the family income. Yet the shift has not correlated to household labor, women are still doing most of the work, particularly related to childcare. It has become the modern debate, whether to work or to have a family.

Along with this transition, there has been a general increase in the total female labor force participation in the majority of developed and developing countries in general, along with an increase in the labor force participation of women who are mothers (Artazcoz, Borell, Benach, Cortes & Rohlfs, 2004). In recent decades western developed countries have made large steps forward in including mothers and also the female labor participation rates in Asian societies have also developed as these nations have grown and in particular the service sectors of these countries have needed a wider employment market (Quah, 2008). There are a range of factors that are responsible for this spike including education, changing values, diversity in living situations, and changing labor markets (Jalal-ud-Din & Khan, 2008).

Despite these changing factors, with questions regarding What a woman’s role is? And whether she should stay at home or work? And whether she should have children and when? There has been a push to postpone having children with this rise in labor force involvement (Phillipov, 2008). These questions have been explored in the public forum for years. If we look at the 1950s, researchers like Parsons and Bales recorded that a woman is a wife a mother, and a runner of the home (Parsons and Bales, 1955). The way that gender roles are understood as the expectations placed on individuals based on their societal gender and the attitudes that individuals have towards men’s and women’s roles have been the subjects of much research.

Even with the general improvement of women’s percentage in the workplace, there is still a rather large difference between countries (Haller and Hoellinger, 1994; Atrazcoz, et al. 2004). Given this situation, there is room to explore the gender role attitudes in different countries and how those perceptions affect a woman’s involvement in the workforce.

In this paper, we will be discussing the attitudes towards gender roles in the home family dynamic that are considered to be related to the compatibility of having a career and a family. In the selected countries women are able to participate in the paid labor but still regularly are expected to do most of the duties around the home as well (Boehnke, 2011). As such women have a dual burden of paid and unpaid labor while men have less of an expectation.

Methodology:

Research Questions:

This paper will look at data from the World Values survey to see the comparative gender role attitudes across three countries, Australia, China, and Pakistan, and what the significance is for families.

How do countries differ with regard to gender role attitudes and family?
How are the consequences of egalitarian gender roles in the family perceived?
Does a country’s development status and subsequent economic values affect the division of labor in the family?

Sampling Method:

The World Values Survey collects data relating to gender roles in the family by using specified gender-related questions within a broader question series. Each question is presented to engage with an attitude related to a specific gender role, and the answer to each question is sorted on a three-part scale (agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree). The five selected questions for this paper are recorded below.

Question

Gender Values
Family Impact
Economic Impact

The five chosen questions were broken into three categories following the example of Braun (2004 in Philipov, 2008). They are gender values, the impact on family of gender attitudes, and the economic impact of gender attitudes. We do this as the questions are formulated to be general and do not necessarily reflect the situation of the respondent.

For this study, agreement with the questions in the gender values category shows that the respondents have a positive attitude towards a woman’s role being bound to the house and caring for the children and family, and respondent disagreement would indicate that paid work is of equal importance to women as family. If the respondent is to agree with the question from the family impact category that would illustrate a negative attitude towards having women in paid work rather than with family. Agreement with the first question in economic impact would show that the push for egalitarian division of labor is causing family conflict. Disagreement in the second question would demonstrate a negative attitude towards women in paid work.

As such in category one or two agreement reveals negative consequences of women’s involvement in paid work. It is evident that the two categories are related, and there should be a level of correlation between the two. The third category will allow for inference to be made about the economic correlation to family dynamics.

Results:

Descriptive Statistics

The results show that for category one, gender values, in Australia the mean for question one was 2.67, in China 1.99, and in Pakistan 1.45. The majority of respondents in Australia disagree with the statement. For China and Pakistan, the mode was in agreement with the statement. The second question recorded a mean of 2.19 for Australia, 2.21 for China, and 2.57 for Pakistan. With the mode for Australia, China, and Pakistan neither agree nor disagree with the statement.

The question for Category Two, family impact, recorded a mean of 2.96 in Australia, 2.51 in China, and 2.07 for Pakistan. The majority of respondents in both Australia and China disagreed with the statement and for Pakistan, they neither agree or disagree with the statement.

For the first question of Category three, economic impact, Australia recorded a mean of 2.59. The mean for China was 2.25 and Pakistan was 1.96. Pakistan’s mode was in agreement with the statement while Australia and China had a majority of respondents disagreed. The final question for economic impact recorded a mean of 1.81 for Australia, 1.75 for China, and 2.06 for Pakistan. With the mode for the respondents from both Australia and China were in agreement with the statement and the mode for Pakistan was in disagreement.

For the questions relating to gender values, statement one recorded a p-value of 0.000 for Australia and China and 0.327 for Pakistan. Statement two recorded a p-value of 0.000 for Pakistan and Australia while China had 0.037. Therefore there is significance (p The family impact question recorded a p-value of 0.000 for Australian respondents, 0.726 for Chinese, and 0.000 for Pakistani. The response of Australian and Pakastini respondents to the statement is significant (the p-value for the first question of the economic impact category was 0.159 for Australia, 0.000 for China, and 0.006 for Pakistan. The second question recorded a p-value of 0.558 for Australia, 0.000 for China, and 0.397 for Pakistan. The impact of gender attitudes on family economics is significant for China across both statements and for Pakistan in the first.

Discussion:

Our study was centered around a comparative investigation of gender role attitudes in three countries and what impact these attitudes have on families in those countries. The results of our analysis point towards the gender values category being able to provide the best description of attitudes for men and women in regard to gender roles compared to family impact and economic impact.

As the descriptive analysis shows modern gender roles are not as prevalent in less developed countries. The data shows that for the first attitude category, Australian respondents have a positive attitude towards women being a part of the paid labor force. This can be seen in their mean response towards gender value statements being 2.43. Given that the gender values category aims to look at the beliefs about the role of women, it is not surprising that a developed country like Australia has a significant positive attitude towards women being involved in the workforce. The factors that are often associated with these attitudes are more likely to be championed in developed countries, whereas more conservative beliefs and attitudes are commonly associated with countries that are still developing (Kangas & Rostgaard, 2007). Unsurprisingly both China and Pakistan have a mixed response to gender values and as such their view on the ultimate role of women is less clear, but leaning towards more traditional values (Jalal-ud-Din & Khan, 2008). The first question of category one was investigating the respondents’ attitude towards job priority and both Chinese (1.99) and Pakistani (1.45) respondents agreed that men should receive employment before women. This does not mean that they do not support women in paid positions but does suggest that they favor the role of men as the family breadwinner (Roder, 2014).

When the response to question one was tested for interaction with the response to the second question regarding whether being a housewife is as fulfilling as paid employment, the data showed that both countries’ respondents landed in the middle. However male respondents trended towards more traditional attitudes of the role of women being to care for the children and the home (Boehnke, 2011). This would suggest that as these countries continue to develop their attitudes would begin to align with developed countries, like Australia.

It was interesting to see that even in developing countries the statement that there could be harm to children with women coming into the labor force was still a fairly even split. The family impact category indicates that traditional family attitudes are still battling against modern egalitarian gender roles and division of labor expectations. While the regression results were not satisfactory, the regression does suggest that in Pakistan particularly traditional attitudes around family dynamics with children are still prevalent.

In regards to the economic impact of gender attitudes, it was clear that a country’s development status affected how the respondents viewed a woman’s role. Australia showed that it had positive support for women working and earning more than men. China and Pakistan both recorded less support towards that first question regarding economic impact. However, China supported a woman’s ability to gain independence through work which supports modern gender attitudes. Pakistan interestingly while being a more religiously conservative country did not show significance for keeping women from gaining independence by work but did in regards to arguments around earning differences between men and women (p= 0.006). This suggests that countries who are less developed cling more to their traditional values as it is a form of security as they continue to attain economic growth, while countries like Australia are able to be more open to change as the increased levels of wealth provide access to the factors for change like education and workplace expansion (Jalal-ud-Din & Khan, 2008).

The aim of this study was to see if gender role attitudes in different countries affected family dynamics and labor force involvement. Unfortunately, the study had several shortcomings, namely the chosen gender category model was not uniformly applied to the selected countries and the analysis was restricted by the selection of variables to be tested within the model. However, it can be summarized that the gender values category regarding attitudes towards gender had primary significance when applied to understanding the issue of paid work or family.

Bibliography:

Artazcoz, L., Borrell, C., Benach, J., Cortès, I., & Rohlfs, I. (2004). Women, family demands and health: the importance of employment status and socio-economic position. Social science & medicine, 59(2), 263-274.
Boehnke, M. (2011). Gender Role Attitudes around the Globe: Egalitarian vs. Traditional Views. Asian Journal of Social Science,39(1), 57-74.
Haller, M., & Hollinger, F. (1994) ‘Female Employment and the Change of Gender Roles: The Conflictual Relationship between Participation and Attitudes in International Comparison’. International Sociology 9: 87- 1 12.
Jalal-ud-Din, M., & Khan, M. (2008). Socio-economic and cultural constraints of women in Pakistan with special reference to Mardan district, NWFP province. Sarhad Journal of Agriculture, 24(3), 485-493.
Kangas, O., & Rostgaard, T. (2007). Preferences or institutions? Work—family life opportunities in seven European countries. Journal of European Social Policy, 17(3), 240-256.
Parsons, T., & Bales, R. (1955) Family, socialization and interaction process. Glencoe: Free Press
Philipov, D. (2008). Family-related gender attitudes. In People, population change and policies (pp. 153-174). Springer, Dordrecht.
Quah, S. (2008) [2003] Home and Kin: Families in Asia. London and New York: Routledge
Röder, A. (2014). Explaining religious differences in immigrants’ gender role attitudes: the changing impact of origin country and individual religiosity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(14), 2615-2635.

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