The Formation and Change of Taiwanese Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Gender-Role: From Adolescence to Adulthood

This study examined patterns and predictors of changing young adults’ attitudes toward gender-role during Taiwan’s social transition in the beginning of 21th century. Based on panel data from 2000 to 2011 and latent growth curve modeling methods, the study identifies patterns and predictors of attitudes formation and change from adolescence to adulthood. The young adults showed an attitude of highly supportive for gender equality, which was following by the declining egalitarian outlook during their transition to adulthood.

The findings indicate that the parental characteristics and their gender-role attitudes have significant influence on the formation of adolescents’ gender-role attitudes as consist with socialization perspective. The study also suggests that the parental attitudes have larger effect on adolescents’ attitudes than does parents’ behavioral modeling as indicated by parents’ household labor pattern. On the other hand, the findings disclose the important source of influence from school and community contexts on both the initial adolescents’ attitudes and the changes that occur along the subsequent years, as indicated by the significant effects of school track, academic achievement, class interaction, work experience and participation in community activities.

Furthermore, the results of the latent growth curve analysis evidence the inter-weaving mechanism of socialization and symbolic interaction. Therein the socialization background has far reaching impact, not only shaping the initial adolescents’ attitudes but also affect the trajectory of the attitudinal change through the various social-interaction contexts.