Aligned, competing, and blurred: Gender and family attitudes in East Asia

Abstract Objective This study explores the complexity of how gender and family attitudes relate to each other in East Asia, paying particular attention to heterogeneity and the impact of cognitive structures. Background Recent work on gender and family attitudes across post‐industrial societies has shown a rise in the complexity of attitudinal configurations. However, no systematic analysis has been conducted to explore variations in attitudinal configurations and cognitive structures. This study aims to fill this gap. Method Data from the 2012 Gender Module of the International Social Survey Programme were used to conduct a relational class analysis to measure relationships and networks among gender and family attitudes in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan ( N = 8,007). Results Analysis revealed three cognitive structures: aligned, competing, and blurred. The aligned structure represents a cognitively unified belief system. The competing structure identifies beliefs that are in conflict, with a network of attitudes that is partitioned into family versus work. The last group comprises those who cognitively have blurred boundaries across different domains of gender, work, and family. Notably, competing and blurred cognitive structures are characterized by lower life satisfaction and fertility intentions than those with an aligned structure. Further analysis demonstrated that all three groupings exist in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan but vary in prevalence. Conclusion The findings shed new light on the complex interplay of gender and family attitudes in East Asia and provide valuable insights into the heterogeneous cognitive structures of attitudes and the consequences of holding unstructured and dissonant attitudinal structures.