Changing gender role behaviors of south Asian men in different gender regimes: A comparative study of COVID‐19 lockdown in Pakistan and Germany

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: Muhammad Wajid Tahir,Manuel Störmer,Madiha Zafar
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2797

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Changing gender role behaviors of south Asian men in

different gender regimes: A comparative study of COVID-19

lockdown in Pakistan and Germany

Muhammad Wajid Tahir

1

| Manuel Störmer

1

| Madiha Zafar

2

1

Institute of Political Science, Philipps

University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

2

Faculty of Social Sciences, Tübingen

University, Tübingen, Germany

Correspondence

Muhammad Wajid Tahir, Institute of Political

Science, Philipps University Marburg,

Wilhelms-Röpke-Str. 6, 35032 Marburg,

Germany.

Email: wajidtahir@daad-alumni.de

This comparative study of COVID-19 lockdown aims to underline changes in gender

role behaviors of South-Asian men (husbands) living in different gender regimes:

Pakistan and Germany. As a nascent contribution to existing discourses of political

science (gender regimes), international migration, and men and masculinity, the study

compares self-reported changes in husbands' masculine and feminine role behaviors

with perceptions of their wives during the lockdown period. A gender role behavior

scale is adapted to design an online survey and collect data through convenient and

snowball sampling techniques. By computing analysis of variance (ANOVA) with

repeated measures, the study infers that the COVID-19 driven first lockdown has

limited the mobility of men (husbands). Thus, they have reported a significant decline

in their traditional masculine role behaviors (outside the home) in both countries.

Nonetheless, a subsequent increase does not appear in their feminine role behaviors.

Although temporary suspension of their breadwinning roles due to lockdown has

allowed them to modify their gender role behaviors by sharing increased domestic

and caregiving tasks in families, a significant change does not appear in their behav-

iors. Findings conclude that social upheaval (COVID-19) does not convince men (hus-

bands) to interchange their masculine and feminine role behaviors in families. Thus,

inferences support key prims of bio-socialists that gender role behaviors are inherited

and may change through cultural advancements (through gender education and

enabling legal frameworks) in relatively less gender-egalitarian societies and proper

‘gendered integration’initiatives in relatively more gender-egalitarian societies.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19, femininity, gender regime, masculinity

1|INTRODUCTION

In any gathering, it is always announced as ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’—a

way to validate the omnipresence of gender. Gender and related ste-

reotypes are one of the first social classifications that children learn

through early socialization processes (Steffens & Viladot, 2015). Since

childbirth, parents assign varying roles to their children based on their

gender (Baron et al., 2014; Steffens & Jelenec, 2011). For instance,

assignment of different colors, allocation of different toys, and selec-

tion of different dress codes for boys and girls reflect traditional gen-

der role stereotypes (Nelson, 2005; Wood et al., 2002). These

stereotypes are further reinforced when boys are taught to be

Received: 2 July 2021 Revised: 1 November 2021 Accepted: 10 November 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2797

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Public Affairs published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2797. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2797