The Influence Of Individualism And Collectivism On Gender Role Attitudes

In contemporary society,gender equality issues have been the core of public discussion.Shanghai as an international metropolitan city has 3.65 million white-collar workers.Hence gender equality issues in Shanghai are worth being deeply explored.Based on a sample of 325 white-collar workers who were born from the 1970 s to 1990 s,the study aimed to explore the influence of horizontal-vertical individualism and collectivism on individuals' gender role attitudes.In order to assess the relationship between cultural orientations and attitudes towards gender role,the author adopted a quantitative explanatory design by collecting questionnaires from325 white-collar workers in Shanghai(84 post-70 s,123 post-80 s,and 118 post-90s).The study revealed that cultural orientations(horizontal individualism and vertical collectivism)could separately predict egalitarian and traditional gender role attitudes.Additionally,age,gender,and marital status as demographic variables could also predict gender role attitudes.Besides,significant differences existed in individuals' cultural orientations and attitudes toward gender role among age groups and gender groups.The post-80 s and post-90 s showed higher horizontal individualism while the post-70 s held stronger vertical collectivism;the males displayed higher vertical individualism than the females.The post-90 s and post-80 s white-collar workers appreciated more egalitarian attitudes towards gender role while the post-70 s held more traditional attitudes;the females held more egalitarian gender role attitudes than the males.Finally,this study made some contributions to future research of gender equality by finding out that the cultural orientations(horizontal individualism and vertical collectivism)could be inner predictors of gender role attitudes.