Title: The Gender-Equality Paradox: Does a More Equal Society Lead to Greater Similarities Between Men and Women?
The belief that a more gender-equal society will result in men and women adopting more similar interests, personality traits, and behavioral patterns is a common one. However, scientific research reveals a more complex picture.
The Gender-Equality Paradox
The so-called gender-equality paradox suggests that some psychological sex differences are more prominent in more gender-equal countries. This pattern is not limited to gender-equal societies but also extends to countries that are more educated, prosperous, and have better living conditions.
Recent research, including a study conducted by the author and research assistant Kare Hedebrant, aimed to investigate the prevalence of this pattern further. The study reviewed 54 articles analyzing the relationship between the magnitude of psychological sex differences and country-level indicators of living conditions. The study also used data from 27 meta-analyses of psychological sex differences and conducted new analyses to determine the associations between sex differences and national economy, education, health, gender equality, and more.
Variation in Psychological Sex Differences
Contrary to the belief that sex differences decrease as living conditions improve, the study found no uniform pattern. In countries with better living conditions, males and females are more alike in some regards and more different in others.
For example, differences in personality characteristics, such as extroversion, agreeableness, and altruism, were found to be larger in countries with better living conditions. This pattern was also observed in some dimensions of emotion, specifically negative emotions in which females tend to score higher, such as shame.
However, there were exceptions to the gender-equality paradox. Sex differences in sexual behavior, such as engaging in casual sex, were consistently found to be smaller in countries with better living conditions. This is probably because women in these countries, where there are more permissive norms, have better access to contraceptives.
Cognitive Functions
For cognitive functions, sex differences were sometimes larger, sometimes smaller, in countries with better living conditions. Interestingly, the sex differences were larger in cognitive domains where women have strengths. For instance, episodic memory (memory for experienced events) and verbal ability, where females typically do better than males, saw larger sex differences as living conditions improved.
Conclusion
Not all psychological sex differences were associated with living conditions in the same way, and the pattern of male and female advantages usually remained the same. Therefore, the gender-equality paradox is only partially accurate. While some sex differences grew in countries with better living conditions, most were not significantly associated with living conditions.
In summary, the study found little support for the idea that psychological sex differences will vanish as societies develop. Instead, it appears that the dominant feature of psychological sex differences is their robustness in the face of social change. This suggests that policymakers cannot rely on social change to achieve equal distributions of men and women in different professions.
References:
The Conversation, “Why more gender-equal societies may actually increase some sex differences,” January 12, 2023.