Gender role attitudes in Italy: 1988–2008. A path-dependency story of traditionalism

ABSTRACT

Considering gender role attitudes as part of a broader cultural change related to the modernization process, this study adopts a path-dependency approach to analyze the support for the role of women in the public sphere in Italy since 1988. Modernization processes varied across Italian regions and the paper explores how different gender patterns developed accordingly. Using pooled data from European Values Survey, World Values Survey, and International Social Survey Program, the author assesses if this specific change is part of the postmaterialist shift and investigates the mechanisms of change carrying out cohort decomposition methods. The results address a reinforcement of traditionalism mainly due to the period effect that shows regional differences given by history.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender role attitudes
• modernization
• traditionalism
• intracohort change
• Italy
• path-dependency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Vera Lomazzi achieved her Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Research Methods at Catholic University of the Sacred Hearth, Milan (Italy) in 2015. As Quantitative Research Assistant she joined the ArabTransition project (FP7) at the University of Aberdeen (UK) where she still acts as Honorary Research Fellow. Since May 2016, she works at GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Science in Cologne (DE) as PostDoc Researcher for the PROMISE project – PROMoting youth Involvement and Social Engagement: Opportunities and challenges for ‘conflicted’ young people across Europe (Horizon2020). Among her very recent publications: the commentary published for Journal of Global Faultlines and a peer reviewed monography (in Italian).

Lomazzi, V. (2016) ‘Middle East refugee response and gender equality challenges’, Journal of Global Faultlines 3(1): 56–64.

Lomazzi, V. (2016) Donne e sfera pubblica. I valori degli europei a confronto [Women and public sphere. Comparing Europeans’ values], Milano: Franco Angeli.

ORCID

Vera Lomazzi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2699-2768