Does Trust Always Help Gender Role Attitudes? The Role of Individualism and Collectivism

Nabamita Dutta (), Lisa Giddings () and Russell Sobel
Additional contact information
Nabamita Dutta: University of Wisconsin – La Crosse
Lisa Giddings: University of Wisconsin – La Crosse

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 159, issue 1, No 14, 379-408

Abstract: Abstract Social trust has a complex interrelationship with attitudes toward gender equality. Social trust has its origins in exchange relationships in preindustrial societies, lowering uncertainty in transactions and easing interpersonal exchanges. The degree to which this trust was extended to opportunities for women in commercial and societal roles, however, differed across cultures. Prior literature finds attitudes toward individualism and collectivism have significant implications for gender equality and patriarchal attitudes. We combine these ideas arguing that the degree to which social trust fosters gender equality depends upon the degrees of individualism and collectivism. Employing World Values Survey data across countries over time, we find that with low levels of individualism, and high degrees of collectivism, higher levels of trust are not effective in reducing the prevalence of gendered patriarchal attitudes—in fact it entrenches them further, worsening gender equality. However, as individualism rises, and collectivism falls, higher levels of trust become effective in reducing the prevalence of patriarchal beliefs. Thus, collectivistic beliefs stand as a barrier to future improvements in women’s equality and economic rights in many societies; preventing social trust from being extended beyond traditional gendered roles.

Keywords: Trust; Gender inequality; Gender role attitudes; Individualism; Collectivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 J16 O11 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-021-02755-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:159:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-021-02755-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-021-02755-y

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().