Gender ideology in the United States and Japan: Cross-cultural measurement equivalence

This project compares the United States and Japan to test whether modern trends in family and work life have produced similar conceptions of gender ideology in both countries, or whether different cultural understandings of the same gender ideology questions remain. Differences in measurement between the two cultures must be taken into account before an accurate comparison of gender ideology in the U.S. and Japan is possible. This study uses eight items from the 2002 International Social Survey Program module "Family and Changing Gender Roles III" to test the measurement equivalence of gender ideology in the U.S. and Japan. Confirmatory factor analyses provide evidence of distinct underlying structures of gender ideology in the U.S. and Japan based on different ideas about the role of the housewife and personal fulfillment. However, a high level of measurement equivalence is found for the majority of gender ideology measures.