Kåre Hedebrant and Agneta Herlitz in Psyche: When it comes to gender equality, no society is perfect, but some are widely understood to have come further than others. These societies do a better job of offering equal opportunities, rights and responsibilities, and minimising structural power differences between men and women. One might expect that men and women in these societies would also become more similar to each other in terms of personality and other psychological qualities. Research has previously found differences in men’s and women’s average levels of characteristics such as self-esteem and sensation-seeking (both typically higher in men), emotional perceptiveness (higher in women), and some cognitive dimensions (though not overall cognitive ability). Do these differences become less pronounced when women and men are more equally empowered?
Surprisingly, researchers have sometimes found the opposite to be true: that improved living conditions, including greater gender equality, are associated with larger psychological differences between men and women. This phenomenon is often referred to as the ‘gender-equality paradox’.
For instance, a 2018 study comparing 22 countries found that higher scores on the Gender Gap Index (GGI), indicating higher gender equality within a country, were strongly associated with larger sex differences in commonly measured personality traits. Women typically rated higher than men on each of the so-called Big Five traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. But these differences were all larger where GGI scores were higher. (To be clear, in these examples and those that follow, we are talking about differences in group averages; there is a great deal of overlap between men and women on all these traits.)
The personality study is just one of several studies showing that some psychological sex differences are larger in countries with higher gender equality, or in countries with better living conditions more broadly – countries that are wealthier and more highly educated, for example.
There is, of course, much debate surrounding the causes of psychological differences between sexes, especially regarding the relative contributions of biological and environmental factors. The gender-equality paradox is sometimes brought to bear on these issues. Some theories of psychological sex differences propose that they stem from men and women being socialised into distinct gender roles. This process is believed to start in early childhood, with societal expectations constantly pushing individuals to behave in specific ways depending on whether they are male or female. But some researchers argue that the gender-equality paradox undermines social-role theories of sex differences. If such theories were correct, the argument goes, we would not see larger sex differences in more gender-equal countries, since that is presumably where gender roles are weakest.
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