Gender social roles: a cross-cultural comparison

Social role beliefs are important to study as they shape individual’s pattern of thinking about their roles as categorized gender-specific or egalitarian in society. The present study investigated cross-cultural variations in individualistic versus collectivist cultures as well as underlying dimensions of the Social Roles Questionnaire using two independent samples of students (N = 1111). From United Kingdom, 108 men (M age = 23.98, SD = 7.66) and 247 women (M age = 22.40, SD = 6.15) and from Pakistan, 552 men (M age = 23.90, SD = 3.27) and 204 women (M age = 23.96, SD = 5.43) were conveniently sampled. Cross-cultural variations and underlying dimensions of the scale were investigated by establishing measurement invariance through a series of hierarchically nested confirmatory factor analyses models by increasing levels of cross-group equality constraints. Results confirmed original two factor model i.e., gender-transcendent (a =.82) and gender-linked (a =.96) with strong Cronbach’s alphas. Measurement invariance results showed invariance on gender-transcendent (??2 = 5.68(6), p > 0.05) whereas non-invariance for measurement (??2 = 49.68(13), p < 0.01) as well as structural models (??2 = 50.19(14), p < 0.01) related to gender-linked. The results were supported by significantly lower latent mean analysis of the UK students than those of the Pakistani students on gender-linked but there was no significant difference on gender-transcendent.