Individual’s gender ideology and happiness in China

Abstract

Gender ideologies encompass normative beliefs about how men and women should behave in certain contexts. Although many studies have examined factors predicting individuals’ gender ideologies, little research has focused on the implications of gender ideology on individuals’ subjective well-being, especially in Asian contexts. Using the pooled cross-sectional data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS, 2010/12/13/15), we explore the association between individual-level gender ideology and happiness in rural and urban China, paying special attention to potential variations in this association by gender and education level. Results suggest that an egalitarian gender ideology is positively associated with happiness in both rural and urban China. The association is stronger for urban men than for urban women and stronger for higher educated people than for lower educated people. The study highlights the importance of gender equality on individual subjective well-being and extends the literature by contextualizing individual-level gender ideology in China.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Michigan State University Department of Sociology Summer Publishing Fellowship (2019) for support. We also thank Sandy Marquart-Pyatt, Jennifer Lai, Alaina Bur, and Mark Suchyta for comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Data included both rural and urban residents in China.

2 More details of the sampling procedure can be found at http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/index.php?r=index/sample

Additional information

Funding

This research is partly supported by the National Institute on Aging, Grants [R01AG061118 and K01AG043417].

Notes on contributors

Yan Zhang

Yan Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her research areas include population health, family demography, aging and life course, and sexuality and gender. Her current work focuses on parenthood and cognitive health among older adults in the U.S.

Hui Liu

Hui (Cathy) Liu is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Family and Population Health (FPH) Laboratory at Michigan State University. Her research is broadly guided by the aging and life course perspective to study social determinants of population health. She has focused on using innovative quantitative methods to promote scientific understanding of marriage and family processes related to population health and well-being over the life course.