“We Are the Woman and We Are the Man”: Insights from Focus Group Analysis on How Scholars Should Measure Sex and Gender

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional ways of measuring sex and gender – often by conflating the two – have been criticized on empirical and normative grounds. This article presents the results of 15 focus groups conducted in Canada in 2016 that were motivated by two questions: How do people think about gender and how can this inform or refine current approaches to the measurement of gender? Several patterns emerged. First, participants seem to understand gender most often in the context of gendered roles and responsibilities, with physical appearances or traits playing secondary roles. Second, the salience of gender tends to be highest at home and in the workplace. Third, ethnicity/race, age, and sexual orientation are, predictably, important lenses through which individuals perceive and experience gender. Fourth, focus groups provide important opportunities for reflection on and improvement of gender measurement in survey research, including the different context-dependent factors that go into gender identity and the need for multi-dimensional measures. Taken together, findings help identify tangible practices that could be adopted for enhancing measurement of gender in survey research.