Gender role egalitarian attitudes in Beijing, Hong Kong, Florida, and Michigan

This article presents the development and validation of a cross-cultural gender role attitudes test and cultural and regional comparisons using it. Construed within the role distribution theory, the 10-item Gender Role Egalitarian Attitudes Test measures gender attitudes along two domains of work and domestic roles and is free from prescribed gender ideology. Validated in convenience samples of 115 Hong Kong and 124 Floridian college students, the test was shown to have sound psychometric properties. Cultural and regional comparisons were conducted in four additional samples of college students from Beijing, Hong Kong, Florida, and Michigan. Each sample contained 50 male and 50 female students. Among the cross-cultural findings, Chinese were less egalitarian than Americans in work but not in domestic gender attitudes, for which Chinese women were more egalitarian than their American counterparts in Florida. Role distribution theory and recent work on hierarchical cultural collectivism are discussed.