According to a new study from the University of California Davis, there remains a persistent gender gap in attitudes about gender equality between men and women.
For their study, the researchers examined data from the General Social Survey for the years 1977-2016, seeking to learn how changes in the labor market affected attitudes of different demographic groups. Participants in the survey answered a series of questions about their attitudes about women in politics, the workplace, men’s and women’s social roles, and other issues.
The research team found that women reacted more positively toward egalitarianism than men. This gender gap has persisted in the last four decades despite large societal transformation in the United States. On the bright side, support for gender equality has increased consistently over the last four decades, with a slowdown only in the 1990s. The last year of the survey, 2016, showed the highest rates of feelings of egalitarianism for almost all demographic groups.
The full study, “Persistent Gender Gap, Shifting Racial & Educational Differentiations: Variations in Structural Influences on Gender Attitudes, 1977-2016,” was presented on August 10 at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in New York.