Examining the gender-equality paradox in values using a new measure of value-based gender typicality.

Authors

Florencia M Sortheix, Ville-Juhani Ilmarinen, Rasmus Mannerström, Sointu Leikas

Published in

Journal of personality and social psychology. Nov 12, 2026. Epub Nov 12, 2026.

Abstract

This study examined changes in gender differences in human values as a function of country-level gender equality (GE) and time. We used a novel gender-typicality approach and data from the European Social Survey collected between 2002 and 2023 (34 countries, N = 439,389). We assess whether gender differences in values are associated with countries' levels of GE; whether these differences diverge, converge, or remain stable over time; and whether increases in GE predict changes in gender gaps in values. Preregistered confirmatory analyses showed that men and women both reported, on average, significantly lower male value-based typicality in countries with higher GE. Results using single-value types showed similar patterns, that is, men and women's values shifted in the same directions as a function of GE. Additional exploratory country-specific analyses using single-value types and younger respondents also supported this pattern. Trends also varied by region, with Nordic and Western European countries generally showing decreases in male typicality, while post-Communist countries showed increases. Regarding time, the overall gender difference in the multivariate gender value typicality composite was smaller in 2023 than in 2002, though the effect of time on values was nonsignificant for both genders. In sum, while we found small gender differences in the relationship between country-level GE and values, the results overall did not support the gender-equality paradox in the domain of values. The real paradox may involve methodological confusion between cross-level and country-level relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:
43019481
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 Nov 2026.

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