Gender Ideologies in Europe: A Multidimensional Framework

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12453
• Author: Sandra Buchler,Daniela Grunow,Katia Begall
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018

D G Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main

K B Utrecht University∗

S B Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main∗∗

Gender Ideologies in Europe: A Multidimensional

Framework

The authors argue, in line with recent research,

that operationalizing gender ideology as a uni-

dimensional construct ranging from traditional

to egalitarian is problematic and propose an

alternative framework that takes the multidi-

mensionality of gender ideologies into account.

Using latent class analysis, they operationalize

their gender ideology framework based on data

from the 2008 European Values Study, of which

eight European countries reectingthe spectrum

of current work–family policies were selected.

The authors examine the form in which gender

ideologies cluster in the various countries. Five

ideology proles were identied: egalitarian,

Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociology,

Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main,

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz6, 60629 Frankfurt am Main,

Germany (grunow@soz.uni-frankfurt.de).

∗Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht

University,Padualaan 14, 3584 CH Utrecht, The

Netherlands.

∗∗Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociology,

Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main,

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz6, 60629 Frankfurt am Main,

Germany.

© 2018 The Authors. Journal of Marriage and Familypub-

lished by WileyPeriodicals, Inc. on behalf of National Coun-

cil on Family Relations.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative

Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-

tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the original

work is properly cited.

Key Words: cultural diversity, family policy, gender, gender

roles, measurement, quantitative methodology.

egalitarian essentialism, intensive parenting,

moderate traditional, and traditional. The ve

ideology proles were found in all countries,but

with pronounced variation in size. Ideologies

mixing gender essentialist and egalitarian views

appear to have replaced traditional ideologies,

even in countries offering some institutional

support for gendered separate spheres.

Despite rising rates of female employment,

European societies are currently promoting

different ideals regarding how men and women

should divide paid and unpaid work. These ide-

als are on the one hand reected in work–family

policies, that is, laws and infrastructure support-

ing women and men as workers and caregivers.

On the other hand, they exist in the form of

gender ideologies. Gender ideologies character-

ize joint constructions of meaning and reality

in a society and are generally conceptualized

as “individuals’ levels of support for a division

of paid work and family responsibilities that

is based on the belief in gendered separate

spheres” (Davis & Greenstein, 2009, p. 87).

Cross-national research studying the gender

division of paid work and family responsibilities

has directed much attention toward welfare

states and work–family policies (i.e., Lewis,

1992; Mandel & Semyonov, 2006). Few com-

parative studies, however, have investigated

the composition of gender ideologies within

countries and how congruent these ideologies

are with existing work–family policy settings

(Knight & Brinton, 2017; Pfau-Efnger, 2012;

42 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 42–60

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12453

Gender Ideologies in Europe: Multidimensional Scheme 43

van Oorschot, Opielka, & Pfau-Efnger, 2008).

The question of correspondence between gender

ideologies and work–family policies is of rel-

evance because gender ideologies potentially

reinforce or weaken the effects of certain poli-

cies (Pfau-Efnger, 2005). In particular, gender

ideologies have been argued to reduce gender

inequalities beyond the effect of policies (Budig,

Misra, & Böckmann, 2012). The rst aim of our

study is thus to contribute to lling the gap in

knowledge on what gender ideologies actually

look like in diverse work–family policy settings

in which different work–family arrangements

are practiced. Although we are not able to test

causal links between gender ideologies and

work–family policies, we draw on the recent

literature on policy feedback theory (Campbell,

2012; Gangl & Ziee, 2015) and discuss mech-

anisms through which country-level differences

in work–family policies and practices may inter-

sect with individual-level gender ideologies.

Although gender ideology is usually framed

as a unidimensional concept ranging from

egalitarian to traditional (Davis & Greenstein,

2009, p. 95), we argue that it needs to be

conceptualized and empirically assessed as a

multidimensional concept because beliefs about

the roles of men and women are more complex

than a single continuum with traditional at one

end and egalitarian at the other. For instance,

support for joint family responsibilities may not

necessarily coincide with support for joint earn-

ing and vice versa. Likewise, policy frameworks

may support one and not the other; for example,

empirical assessments of all European Union

countries show that work–family policies may

foster dual earning but limit dual caring (Sara-

ceno & Keck, 2011). Extending these arguments,

cross-national research on gender ideologies

suggests that societies can become more egali-

tarian on one dimension of gender ideology and

at the same time more traditional on another

(Yu & Lee, 2013). Concomitant inconsistencies

in attitudes and divisions of labor have fre-

quently been documented in the United States,

Europe, and Australia (England, 2011; Treas &

Drobnic, 2010; van Egmond, Baxter, Buchler,

& Western, 2010). In these contexts, although

mothers and fathers generally both participate

in paid work, even during the early stages of

family formation divisions of housework and

care have remained gendered. Despite this, the

majority of studies explicitly examining gender

ideologies or employing a measure of gender

ideology as a control variable use either one

item or create a composite measure or index

of various items addressing gender attitudes.

Both of these approaches are not ideal due to

the loss of information on different dimensions

of gender ideologies (Ciabattari, 2001). Thus,

the second aim of our study is to propose and

provide empirical support for a theoretical

framework that takes the multidimensionality of

gender ideologies into account.

We propose to fulll these two aims by

assessing (a) whether gender ideologies are

unidimensional, as suggested in the separate

spheres framework, or rather multidimensional,

as is indicated by an increasing body of predom-

inantly qualitative research that nds a spread

of ideologies that combine traditional and egal-

itarian views; (b) whether the prevalence of

different gender ideology dimensions varies

across countries and between men and women;

and (c) whether the prevalence of gender ide-

ologies corresponds with work–family policies.

Theoretically, we employ policy feedback the-

ory (Campbell, 2012) to frame comparative

literature on work–family policies (i.e., Misra,

Budig, & Moller, 2007; Saraceno & Keck, 2011)

and to illustrate how country-level differences

in work–family policies and practices intersect

with the individual-level gender ideologies.

Empirically, we apply a latent class analysis to

allow for diverse gender ideology proles within

and between work–family policy settings. We

detect different gender ideology proles (latent

classes) in a sample of eight European countries

and predict latent class membership by country

and sex of respondent to assess the within- and

between-country variations in these classes.

Our article extends research on gender ideol-

ogy in several ways. First, we use largerepresen-

tative national samples from Europe, drawing on

comprehensive gender ideology items to assess

the multidimensionality of gender ideologies.

Second, we study how widespread these multi-

dimensional ideologies are across the countries

we examine. Third, we provide tentative evi-

dence on the question of congruence between

work–family policy setting and gender ideology

by comparing salient dimensions of both across

dissimilar institutional work–policy settings.

G I—C  S 

R

Gender ideologies are believed to be complex

in nature and constructed over time, both as an