Mind the Gender Gap: Gender Role Attitudes and Their Impact on Union Formation in Europe

Alina Pavelea, University of Warsaw
Anna Matysiak, University of Warsaw

The reversal of the education gap, with women's attainment now surpassing men's, has highlighted how gender imbalances affect partnership formation. While prior studies have explored the consequences of these educational mismatches on partnerships, they have not examined the growing gap in gender role attitudes. This gap, with young men becoming more traditional and young women more egalitarian, likely affects partnership formation, as similarity in attitudes is important in partner selection. Consequently, conservative men and egalitarian women may struggle to find partners who share their views, whereas egalitarian men and conservative women have a larger pool of compatible partners. Therefore, we hypothesize that in countries and birth cohorts with larger gaps in gender attitudes: 1) conservative men and egalitarian women are less likely to form a union, while 2) egalitarian men and conservative women are more likely to form a union. To address this gap, we use Gender and Generations Survey I (GGS) waves 1 and 2.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Gender Dynamics

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