The effects of religious beliefs and practices among urbanites on attitudes toward gender roles in marriage: Cross-national perspectives in 38 countries

Objectives: Despite evidence of real changes in gender equality, attitudes toward marital gender roles continue to be a matter of inequality and controversy in much of the world. This research examined variability in the relationship between religious beliefs and practices and attitudes toward gender roles in marriage within urban populations worldwide. Sample: Data used were from the International Social Survey Programme: Religion III (ISSP 2008; N=38, 562). Findings: The opinions of urban married men in the study were inclined toward hierarchial gender role traditionalism in marriage while gender role equality was the preference of urban married women and women in general. Sex role traditionalists among religious urbanites of both genders were more likely than egalitarians to hold fundamentalist Christian beliefs of authoritative biblical literalism and regarded belief in the supernatural and sacred (heaven, hell, life after death, religious miracles) as integral to their faith. Traditionalists had higher church attendance rates than egalitarians, attributable in part to the influence of family religious socialization among conservative Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. Urban egalitarians on the whole tended to be more secular and viewed the bible in decidedly rational terms as an ancient book of legends and moral precepts recorded by men. Protestants who believed in gender-role equality in marriage were likely to retain denominational homogamy from childhood (11-12 years old) into adulthood which contributed to significant marital homogamy.  Traditionalists in relation to the labor market were characterized by the historical typology of working male head-of-household and the status of women as housewives. In contrast, rising levels of women’s workforce participation have increased the influence of the egalitarian viewpoint among women worldwide; this trend has been heightened in dual-earner families with children when each spouse is in the paid labor force and working full-time or part-time outside the home.