Changes in Men's Conservative Gender Ideologies

Abstract

Men's gender ideologies have changed more slowly than women's since the 1970s; this article analyzes the period and cohort processes that underlie men's attitude change and how the individual-level characteristics of conservative men differ by birth cohort. Using multidimensional measures of gender role attitudes from the 1974-1998 General Social Surveys, the author finds that changes in men's attitudes have been brought about both by period influences, especially during the 1970s, and by cohort replacement. Analyses of multivariate interaction effects demonstrate that education has become a much less significant predictor of attitudes for men born after 1945.

Cohort change, diffusion, and support for gender egalitarianism in cross-national perspective

“…Examining differences across cohorts rather than years, modeling the varying effects of education on gender egalitarianism rather than just the level of gender egalitarianism, and testing nonlinear predictions of an integrative diffusion theory all help extend the literature in new directions. Making comparisons across cohorts builds on other studies (Brewster and Padovic 2000;Brooks and Bolzendahl 2004;Ciabattari 2001;Schnittker, Freese, and Powell 2003;Wilkie 1993) but also more fully exploits the potential for change to occur across groups that are born and socialized in different historical periods. Modeling interactions between cohort and education captures both the diffusion of gender egalitarianism and the importance of cohort sources of social change.…”

“…However, women who benefit the most from gender equality will more quickly adopt new attitudes than men (Ciabattari 2001). The diffusion of gender egalitarianism may occur for men but not as quickly or to the same extent as for women.…”

A stalled revolution? Gender role attitudes in Australia, 1986–2005

“…First there is evidence that women hold more liberal gender attitudes than men (Brewster and Padavic 2000;Ciabattari 2001;Davis and Robinson 1991;Kane and Sanchez 1994;Scott 2008). Moreover, US evidence suggests that men's attitudes have been slower to change than women's with the result that the gap between men's and women's attitudes has widened over the last 25 years (Brewster and Padavic 2000;Ciabattari 2001).…”

Family and gender values in contemporary Europe: The attitudinal gender gap from a cross-national perspective

“…In general, in advanced modern societies, and when compared to women, men are less supportive of equal roles (Panatoya and Brayfield 1997). They have been slower to change their values, even though recent findings have documented men's generational change (Thornton 1989), as in Ciabattari's (2001) research in the United States. A major argument in interpreting these trends concerns a common fact: the rise of women's social and financial independence.…”