Measuring Gender Egalitarianism: The Attitudinal Difference Between Men and Women

Abstract

Gender egalitarianism is often used in research on women's status, but research has yet to develop a comprehensive measure of this variable for a large number of countries. Moreover, current studies neglect to examine the difference between men's and women's attitudes toward gender equality. This article aims to overcome these shortcomings. Applying factor analysis to the World Values Survey data, I create a composite index of gender egalitarianism for Western and non-Western countries. I begin with an extended model for a limited number of countries (n = 38) and predict the value of this index for all countries for which data are available (n = 67). This new index can be used in further research on the causes and effects of gender egalitarianism in a more diverse set of countries than previously available; it is sound methodologically. Substantively, this article contributes to the discussion on the difference between men's and women's gender egalitarian attitudes. Specifically, the results show that in less egalitarian countries women's attitudes toward gender equality are significantly stronger than men's, while in more egalitarian countries, women's and men's attitudes in this domain are practically the same.