Review of research on sex role attitudes

There are many indices that roles of men and women have changed during the last two to three decades. This paper reviews psychological and sociological literature, and points out the following : (a) the shift of sex role attitudes, (b) their important predictors, and (c) some of cross-cultural comparisons. Sex role attitude is defined here as a learned tendency, which consistently responds favorably or unfavorably to certain sex roles. Since the 1970s, many panel surveys and longitudinal surveys, both in Japan and in USA, show that sex role attitudes have shifted toward an egalitarian direction in many fields. Cross-cultural surveys in many countries revealed that the most important predictors of sex role attitudes are, sex, education, vocation, and age. Highly educated young women with a professional /managerial job show probably the most egalitarian sex role attitude. However, cross-cultural studies indicate that Japanese women have more traditional sex role attitudes than those in other countries.