Introduction
In 2000, the United Nations launched the Millennium Development Goal to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. One of the eight goals was to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. While the world has made progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment, women and girls still experience discrimination and violence around the world (United Nations, 2017). That is why in 2015 the UN launched The Sustainable Development Goals, which is a set of 17 "Global Goals" in which gender equality is readmitted as fifth goal. It needed to make sure that gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls are achieved by 2030. Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but also fundamental for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
The Millennium Development and Sustainable Development Goals can be seen as a good starting point for this thesis. The need for equality between men and women is not only a public opinion, but also strived by all 193-member states of the UN in which no country has fully reached gender equality yet. Researchers in the field of sociology, psychology, anthropology and many other fields have been doing research for decades on gender equality. However, most researches found support of gender role inequality, but gender equality is not explained. This research will focus to what extent gender and family roles explains this gender inequality. Therefore the research question is: To what extend do differences in family and gender roles of individuals explain gender inequality? This thesis’ support of gender and family roles equality can inform those of the UN who aim for gender equality, including their policymakers, on how to support gender and family roles equality that is linked with the goals they have formulated.
Literature review
The theories and hypotheses described in this section are based on the family and gender roles that people learn through the life paths most people go through. People learn through interaction with others which behaviors are acceptable and which are not; this is also called socialization. This study will be on individual level so all sections will be based on how individuals are influenced by gender and family roles. The first section starts with how gender and family roles are teached at childhood. After this, the role of education and work to the gender and family roles are discussed. The last sections show how the family situation and religion of people influences their perspective.
Childhood
In the first period of a person’s life they learn how to initially learn and build their selves through experiences and interactions around them, this is called primary socialization. Primary socialization starts at home through their family, which is mostly teached by parents. By the lead of the parents the child learns what is accepted in society, social norms are, and cultural practices. Parents also teach their children to adapt a gender as an organizing principle for themselves and the world around them. This also implies that the family is the first place in which gender roles and gender role attitudes are learned, and parents are seen as role model.
Researchers have found that having a daughter makes parents more supportive of gender role equality (Warner, 1991). As parents want their children to have as many opportunities in life as possible they become more aware of the inequality in opportunities in society when having a d`aughter. Therefore, families with a girl are in a more supportive environment towards gender equality.
Having a working mother is in general also connected with the idea of having a more supportive gender role equality family, compared to stay at home mothers (Panayotova & Brayfield, 1997). Furthermore, having a working mother may also lead to more positive experiences associated with working for children because of the mother’s contribution to the family income and the provision of a higher standard of living (Panayotova & Brayfield, 1997). Children, also daughters, of families in which the mother has a job, are also expected to work later in life. Therefore, we expect children from working mothers to be more supportive of gender role equality.
The first hypotheses, based on childhood therefore are:
Ho: Families with a daughter are more supportive of gender equality than those without a daughter because they are in a more supportive environment.
Ho: Families with a working mother are more supportive of gender equality than those with a stay at home mother because it contributes to the acceptance of women's employment at an early age.
Education
After children are socialized and have learned accepted norms in their early childhood by their parents and close family, children enter the educational system. The educational system teaches the children further about the excepted norms about gender roles and the support of gender role equality. Education can therefore be seen as one of the most important factors predicting gender-role attitudes (Alwin, Thornton & Camburn, 1983).
Assumed is that the educational system supports the norm of gender role equality, and therefore those who follow a longer educational track are longer exposed to the educational norms. Following a higher track of education is also associated with having a higher support of gender equality since their teacher are also higher educated and therefore more supportive of gender role equality (Panayotova & Brayfield, 1997).
A higher educational attainment increases women’s employment options in terms of better potential access to psychologically rewarding jobs. Educational attainment is also associated with the option availability and the rewards that are connected to the work market options. From this it might be expected that women with a higher formal education hold a more positive attitude towards women’s participation in the labor force. In contrast to less educated women, who have fewer qualifications, which limit them to jobs that are poorly paid or are more routine jobs. This increases the possibility of focusing more on household and childcare, which might hold a more negative attitude to women’s participation in the labor force (Sjöberg, 2004). The opportunity perspective also holds for men, because education not only influences changes in men's personal experiences but also promotes their greater awareness of changes in norms and beliefs (Panayotova & Brayfield, 1997).
The third hypothesis, based on education is therefore:
Ho: People who follow a longer educational track and a higher educational level support gender role equality more, than those with a shorter educational track and lower educational level.
Labor
One of the most significant developments of the twentieth century has been the entry of women into the labor force. The growing participation of women in the labor market has been one of the basic trends at work in all developed countries. Where in the early 1960s women, especially married women with children, were still more likely to remain at home while men were the ‘bread makers’ where more engaged in the workforce (Cherlin & Walters, 1981). Now its ‘normal’ for all young women and men to take the next step after education and enter the labor market. Employment was a long time only assumed to be for men. Differences between men and women still exist, which can influence the attitude of men and women.
The work environment also holds norms on gender role equality but is different between sectors and companies. It is, in the work force, in general more expected to be supportive of gender role equality. Furthermore, this acceptance is expected to have increased with the increase of women participation. (Huber & Spitze, 1981). Gender attitude of employed women may be influenced by the unequal situations they often are confronted with in the labor market (Davis & Robinson, 1991). At the individual level, women who work not at home are more likely to believe that women’s employment is acceptable (Motiejūnaitė, Akvilė and Höhne, Anke).
Glass (1992) finds that women employed part time level hold attitudes more similar to those of stay at home moms rather than women who are full time employed. Furthermore, Glass suggests that the number of hours employed increases women’s support for nontraditional gender roles, and that gender equality becomes stronger. Men in dual earner families exhibit greater attitudinal support for non-traditional gender roles, compared to single earner men (Mason and Lu 1988). Furthermore, employed men only encounter the general norm and are therefore expected to be more supportive of gender role equality than unemployed men.
It can also be a rational choice for women and men to support gender role equality. For women it is in her interest to demand an equal wage, compared to men with the same job. For men, with working wives, this could be the reason too, since this can upgrade their wives salary and thus their family income.
The fourth hypothesis, based on labor therefore is:
Ho: those who are employed, support gender role equality more.
Family
While being employed most people start settling and starting a family. The family is one of the main places where gender relations are produced and reproduced. Within the family situation, spouses and children influence ones individual attitude toward gender role equality.
Previous part, men in dual earner families exhibit greater attitudinal support for non-traditional gender roles than do single earner men, and employed men are expected to be more supportive of gender role equality than unemployed men. Furthermore, men with employed wives are also more supportive to gender role equality.
Marital status is also often a determinant of gender role attitudes. Married and widowed women express less egalitarian views than separated, divorced, or never-married women. Marriage promotes women's dependence on men, and therefore married or widowed women may be more critical of the negative consequences of women's employment for family life and children (Panayotova & Brayfield, 1997). Most studies agree that marital status affects women’s attitudes more than men’s. Women who are married or cohabiting experience also more pressure than men do, as they combine work and family responsibilities. Therefore they may be more critical to the negative consequences of women’s employment for family life. If this is correct, women who have children should be even more critical (Baxter & Kane, 1995). This can be explained because marriage is a more traditional role and with this more traditional role a more traditional attitude is expected. Divorcees have to adopt non-traditional roles and they become more supportive of gender role equality.
Also the family income equality can be a result or a cause of support of gender role equality. In more traditional families, the family income is to a larger extent earned by the husband. If the husband and wife contribute equally to the family income this can be an indication of a more supporting family. If the wife contributes more to the income, this can also indicates a non-traditional family.
The fifth and sixth hypothesis, based on the family therefore are:
Ho: those who are not married support gender role equality the most
Ho: those who live in households in which both partners contribute to the family income, support gender role equality more
Religion
As written before, the supports of gender equality roles are formed in the childhood, education, at work and in the family. The final group where a person in formed in there believes and norms are their religion group. Religion is mostly practiced in a social group as a church or mosque. Religion could drive gender inequality by promoting restrictive norms. Countries with more non-religious people would be less tied to these norms.
In Motiejūnaitė, Akvilė and Höhne, Anke study (as cited in Thornton, Alwin, and Camburn, 1983) they found the causality that church attendance influences gender-role attitudes, but does not seem to be influenced by them. Furthermore, those religion institutions have historically upheld the ideal role of women as active and supportive. They praise motherhood and idealized the family and women’s traditional role, especially for Roman Catholics and Protestants. For Jews they found more support of gender role equality while for the Islam the religious leaders emphasize the differences and segregation between the sexes.
Motiejūnaitė, Akvilė and Höhne, Anke also found that having more Christians in a country seems to be associated with higher support of gender equality role. However, Christians do not increase equality. Having more Muslims in a country becomes associated with less support of gender inequality.
The last hypothesis, based on religion therefore is:
Ho: people who practice a religion support less gender equality than does who do no practice a religion.
Control variables
The regression also needs to include control variables to clarify the relationship. Control variables will be researched during period 4.
Method and Design
Data family and gender roles
The data on family and gender roles are derived from the International Social Survey Programme, ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’ module IV 2012. The ISSP is a large-scale annual program cross-national research on topics important for the social sciences. This module mainly focuses on gender related issues such as attitudes towards women’s employment, marriage, children and financial support, household management and partnership.
ISSP international committee developed the modules. The questions in the modules are relevant to all countries and are translated in an equivalent manner in all languages. The ISSP had a ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’ module in 1988, 1994, 2002, and 2012.
The studies of ISSP studies are expected to be runned by all members, however, the ISSP accepts members omitting. Missing funds causes the usual reason for members’ failure to field an ISSP survey. The ISSP does not have any central funds and most ISSP members have to raise funds for the surveys. The 2012 module ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’ was runned by 37 out of 49 membership countries.
Data gender equality
The data on gender equality is derived from Social Watch, ‘Gender Equity Index’ from the 2012 publication. GEI classifies 154 countries and concluded that in no country women enjoy the same opportunities as men. The purpose of the index is to make it possible to position and classify countries according to a selection of indicators of gender inequality. The indicators focus on economic activity, empowerment and education. Social Watch's work is funded and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Flemish North South Movement 11.11.11. (Social Watch, 2017). Institutions such as the World Bank and the Global Development Network have used this index extensively. (Fernández-Sáez et all., 2017)
The index’s range of values is from 0 to 100, with lower values indicating greater inequity and higher values greater equity. The index classifies 154 countries that represents more than 90% of world’s populations and covers all countries that are surveyed by the ISSP.
Like most composite measures, the GEI has some limits. Due to the amount of indicators it does not fully capture the length and breadth of the gender equality. Furthermore it misses other important dimensions mainly due to the limited data available.
Model
The research will be build on the following simplified multiple linear regressions:
Gender Equality = β0 +β1Childhood +β2Education+ β3Labor Force+ β4Family+β5Religion+ε
Where Gender Equality is the dependent variable, and Childhood, Education, Labor Market, Family, and Religion are the independent variables. The error term is displayed with the sign ε. This model will be optimized and further discussed during period 4.
Assumptions:
Statistical tests rely upon certain assumptions about the variables used in the analysis. When these assumptions are not met, the results may not be trustworthy, resulting in: a Type I or Type II error, over or underestimation of significance or effect size. (Osborne & Waters, 2002)
The first assumption assumes that the variables are normally distributed. If this is not the case the variable can misrepresent the relationship and significance tests. Secondly, it is assumed that there is a linear relationship between the independent and dependent variable. Multiple regressions can only represent an accurate relationship if the variable is linear in nature. In social science research, many variables are difficult to measure, which increases the chance on making measurement errors. This leads to the third assumptions that variables are measured without error. The last and fourth assumption is the assumption of homoscedasticity. Homoscedasticity means that the error term is the same across all values of the independent variables. (Osborne & Waters, 2002)