The Effect of Gender on Sex-Role Attitudes

An examination of the contradiction between college student studies and national public opinion polls. The evidence concerning the existence and magnitude of gender differences in sex-role attitudes is contradictory. A large number of studies, based primarily on college samples, have reported significant gender differences in the sex-role attitudes of young adults; males have been found to be more traditional than females. However, studies based on national samples including all age and educational groups have not found consistent gender differences. In order to investigate this contradiction, NORC General Social Survey was aggregated from the years 1974 through 1978 to create a data set that included a large number of young adults who were currently attending or who had recently attended college. Both age and education were found to be significant predictors of sex-role attitudes, but for most of the items examined gender differences were not found to be larger for young adults than for older adults. For both age groups larger gender differences were found in items pertaining to caring for children than for items pertaining to women's roles in the public sphere.