Support for traditional female roles across 32 countries: Female labour market participation, policy models and gender differences

In this research we study support for traditional female roles. We test individual and contextual explanations for differences in support for traditional female roles within and across 32 countries. Higher educated, employed people and those who do not adhere to a religion are least supportive. The higher the female labour market participation, the less traditional the average citizen is: this contextual effect is stronger for women than for men. Governmental child care expenditure does not affect average levels of support for traditional female roles. Yet, we do find a significant drop in traditional attitudes for men, when governments spend more on child care. This shows the importance of including the possibility of differences in contextual effects for men and women.