The Gender Revolution: Stalled or Still Unfolding? Changes in Gender Role Ideology across Western and Islamic Countries, Cohorts 1942-1995

The gender role revolution is often conceptualized as significant transformations within the gender system. Prior literature suggests that there is an increase toward egalitarian values about gender roles but that this upward trend has stalled among recent generations. This claim is based upon limited evidence from developed Western societies. It is questionable whether this claim can be upheld globally. The literature suggests that in Islamic countries, including the ones that are developed, the trend towards egalitarian gender values is less steep. The aim of this paper is to trace whether the developments in gender role ideology are happening similarly across Western and Islamic societies. Particularly, we are interested to know to what extent the developments have levelled off in both types of countries and, if so, from which generations or period the trend reversal or stagnation has occurred. We also examine the effects of various cultural and structural predictors highlighted in two important studies by Gerling et al. (2019) and Cotter et al. (2011), including changes in religiosity and education, to understand the possible stall and uneven pace of change in gender role ideologies. Our analysis is based on repeated cross-sectional data sets of WVS and EVS [IVS] over the period of the past two decades (2005-2022, five waves). We find a number of variations across western and Islamic countries. The findings show that on average, an upward linear trend over cohorts is found in both Islamic and western societies, which starts leveling off in most recent cohorts. However, the developments in trends towards egalitarian gender ideology are leveling off much steeper in Islamic societies. The cohort effect on gender role ideologies is strongly mediated by religiosity and education, but the effect of religiosity is much stronger in Islamic societies.