The Ecological-Evolutionary Typology of Human Societies and the Evolution of Social Inequality

Gerhard Lenski's ecological-evolutionary typology of human societies, based on the level of technology of a society and the nature of its physical environment, is a powerful predictor of various dimensions of social inequality. Analysis of comparative data shows that while some dimensions of the stratification system (such as measures of social complexity) exhibit a monotonic trend of increasing inequality with level of technology from the hunting-and-gathering to the agrarian type, others (such as measures of freedom and sexual inequality among males) exhibit a pattern of "agrarian reversal" in which inequality increases from the hunting‐and‐gathering to the advanced horticultural type but then declines with the agrarian type. Theoretical and empirical implications of the agrarian reversal pattern for the study of social inequality are discussed.     

Combining Egalitarian Working Lives with Traditional Attitudes: Gender Role Attitudes in Taiwan,Japan, and Korea

In a simple theoretical framework, egalitarian gender role attitudes emerge as more and more women participate in the labor market. Most advanced Western nations enjoy relatively gender-egalitarian working environments, and consequently more egalitarian gender attitudes than their East Asian counterparts. Women in East Asian societies, on the other hand, are said to support both the conditions resulting in stagnant female labor-force participation and traditional attitudes toward gender roles. In Taiwan, however, women are more economically active than in two other East Asian societies—Japan and South Korea—even though women in all three societies favor the traditional gender division of labor. Thus, in Taiwan, women experiencing inconsistencies between their active working lives and their traditional values. This study hypothesizes that this inconsistency, or the coexistence of the old and the new, is reflected in the very mind-set of women. Using comparative data from the 2006 East Asian Social Survey, we analyzed the gap between responses to questions on gender attitudes in relation to working conditions, and other general gender role attitudes. We found there were significant differences in the size of these gaps. Taiwanese women expressed more egalitarian views insofar as the questions were concerned with practical economic interests, while they retained their basic traditional attitudes towards gender roles in their homes. This gap is larger in Taiwan than in Japan or South Korea.     

Gender Inequality in Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan Areas1

Abstract Nonmetropolitan-metropolitan differences in the United States are large and growing, but we know relatively little about how they interact with gender differences. Using data from the CPS, the Census PUMS, and the GSS, we find nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas are quite similar in the gender gap in earnings and in rates of married women's labor force participation. Occupational sex segregation is higher and some gender attitudes are a few percentage points less egalitarian in nonmetropolitan areas. Each of these dimensions of gender stratification has been declining over the last two decades and the declines are roughly similar in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas. Variations in gender stratification have been greater over time than across place. Thus, while both place and gender are important dimensions of stratification, there appears to have been little interaction between the two.     

Decomposing Gender Beliefs: Cross‐National Differences in Attitudes Toward Maternal Employment and Gender Equality at Home

Few cross‐national studies distinguish between different aspects of gender egalitarianism and compare them systematically. In this study, we examine cross‐national differences in attitudes toward mothers' participation in the labor market and toward gender equality within the household, using a multilevel analysis of individual data from 33 nations. The results indicate greater support for employed mothers, but a lower level of approval of gender equality at home, among residents of countries that offer women more educational and economic opportunities. We argue that macrolevel gender equality increases individuals', particularly women's, incentives to support female labor force participation. Because of a persistent belief in gender differentiation, however, macrolevel gender equality has the opposite relationship with attitudes toward altering gendered practices beyond enabling women's public sphere participation. The fewer explicit barriers to women's achievement in society, the more likely individuals will feel a need to defend gendered roles in the private sphere. That the potential harm of advocating gendered practices in the private sphere is smaller in societies with fewer impediments for women is also likely to account for the negative association between macrolevel gender equality and support for egalitarian gender roles at home.     

Sex and gender: What do we know?

The study of sex and gender is concerned with documenting the existence of differences between the sexes and explaining why those differences exist. This paper first examines what we know about how women and men differ, focusing on differences in social roles, and in the abilities and traits associated with those roles. The paper then examines why women and men differ. In addressing this question, the roles of both biological and social influences are considered. Although there is reason to believe some sex differences in behavior and attitudes have a biological basis, the existence of historical and cross-cultural variation in gender role differentiation and stratification provides strong evidence that social influences play an important role in the determination of differences between the sexes. Both biological and social factors have influenced the division of labor by sex, and the division of labor provides the basis for gender stratification by affecting the degree to which each sex is able to acquire and control the valuable resources of a society. Reduction of gender inequality in contemporary societies therefore requires reduction of gender differentiation in the division of labor.     

Which men become involved fathers? The impact of men's own attitudes on paternal involvement in the Netherlands

Using data from the first two waves of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, I examine to what extent men's own attitudes explain their paternal involvement after the transition into parenthood. This study moves beyond previous work by incorporating multiple dimensions of paternal involvement, by unravelling issues of causality regarding the measurements of attitudes and behaviour and by taking important father, mother, and child characteristics into account. In line with my expectations, the results show that men with more egalitarian gender role attitudes and higher scores on parenthood status salience are more (relatively) more involved in childcare tasks. However, results vary depending on the outcome measure studied. First, my finding reveal that men with more egalitarian gender role attitudes and higher scores on parenthood status salience spend more time (in absolute terms) on playing with their child, but the strength of this association depends on the age of the child. Furthermore, only men with more egalitarian gender role attitudes are relatively more involved in physical and logistic tasks. Both men with more egalitarian gender role attitudes and men with higher scores on parenthood status salience are relatively more involved in child care tasks labelled as ‘responsibility’     

Explaining ”Male Chauvinism” and ”Feminism”:

Paradoxically, contemporary evolutionary biology provides an impartial way to study the contradiction, in comtemporary Western democracies, between egalitarian political principles and practices discriminating between men and women. After developing the cost-benefit approach to "inclusive fitness," and showing that it soes not entail genetic reductionism, differences in male and female gender roles are explored from an evolutionary perpective. Human societies have varied from the equality and complementary of the two sexes among hunter-gatherers like the !Kung to the radical inequality of females in hypergynous systems like that of traditional India. Two enviromental variables-social stratification and the reliability of resources-are critical in the emergence of the attitudes and practices conventionally described as "male chauvinism." In industrial societies of relative abundance and security, such discrimination against females is shown to be an anachromism correlated with those social strata characterized by psychological insecurity and the desire to protect acquired status and material wealth.     

Configurations of gender inequality: the consequences of ideology and public policy1

This paper gathers a wide range of indicators into distinctive profiles to show how configurations of gender economic inequality are shaped by both welfare state strategies and gender role ideologies. When multiple aspects of gender inequality are assembled together, it becomes evident that all societies exhibit both gender‐egalitarian and inegalitarian features. These tradeoffs can best be understood through the ideological and institutional contexts in which they are embedded. Empirical illustrations are provided for fourteen advanced societies by analysing the major expressions of gender inequality; from women's economic wellbeing and financial autonomy, through labour force participation and continuity of employment, to occupational attainments and economic rewards. The analysis confirms the existence of distinctive profiles of gender inequality and their affinity to normative conceptions of the gender order and ideal types of welfare state institutions.     

College Women’s Plans for Different Types of Egalitarian Marriages

This study examined college women’s plans for egalitarian marriages. One hundred and forty‐four heterosexual undergraduate women completed surveys about their preferences for different life scenarios and their attitudes about work and family life. The pattern of their preferences showed a distinction between home‐centered, balanced, and job‐centered egalitarian families. Regressions showed that gender ideology, ideas about parenting and motherhood, career orientation, and family dynamics were associated differentially with the three types of egalitarian families, which reflected the different values that underlay the pursuit of each. The results also cast doubt on whether outsourcing is truly an egalitarian path. Outsourcing domestic labor may simply be a means for women to pursue careers without achieving real equality in families.     

Scheidung in Ost- und Westdeutschland

This paper compares marital stability of East and West German women before re-unification in 1990. It is analyzed to what extent women in both countries differed concerning the risk to experience a first divorce and what factors caused these differences. The main focus is on the impact of women’s labor force participation on marital stability. While the GDR, in terms of women’s participatio in the labor market, was based on egalitarian role expectations, the social and institutional constraints of the FRG supported the male-breadwinner model. The oppositeness of these role models makes it possible to investigate whether the interrelation between women’s labor force participation and marital stability differs between traditional and egalitarian societies. The empirical analyses, based on the German Fertility and Family Survey (1992), show a significantly higher divorce risk for East German women that is primarily caused by the smaller number of religious people, a higher share of women that experienced a parental divorce and the higher number of employed women in the GDR. In both countries women’ labor force participation was connected with a higher divorce risk, but the effect was stronger in West than in East Germany. Thus, this study yields evidence for a weaker negative relationship between women’s labor force participation and marital stability in societies that are dominated by egalitarian in comparison to traditional role expectations.     

Division of Labor,Gender Ideology,and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N = 3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses were more satisfied with their marriage and had more egalitarian divisions of housework, but simultaneously they held less egalitarian gender ideologies. Multivariate analyses showed that relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for Japanese and Korean men and for Korean and Taiwanese women. Egalitarian gender ideology was significantly associated with lower marital satisfaction only among Taiwanese women. In addition, the negative association between housework and marital satisfaction was more pronounced for Taiwanese women who espoused more egalitarian gender ideologies. The authors discuss how differences in macro‐level social contexts explain these cross‐society variations.     

One step forward? Advances and setbacks on the path toward gender equality in families and work

Men and women increasingly express egalitarian preferences for organizing family life, but workplace norms and practices are still based on relatively traditional assumptions about the gender division of labor in families. In this article, we unpack this discordant feature of the cultural landscape with recent sociological research on gender, work, and family. We begin by discussing the growing body of evidence on preferences for gender–egalitarian relationships and specify how these egalitarian desires are incongruous with workplace norms and practices. Such a mismatch between desires and reality tends to produce negative personal and career outcomes, including work–family conflict, stress, and job and marital dissatisfaction. Then, we offer a critical review of the recent actions taken by some employers and policymakers to address this issue. We observe some progressive changes in both the public and private sector in regard to family leave policies, flexible work arrangements, childcare support, and fertility benefits, but these policy initiatives still fall short of supporting gender–egalitarian arrangements for working families. We conclude with a discussion of how researchers could better evaluate and increase the effectiveness of workplace initiatives.     

Toward an Ecological–Evolutionary Theory of the Incidence of Warfare in Preindustrial Societies

Prompted by the lack of attention by sociologists and the challenge of materialist explanations of warfare in "precivilized" societies posed by Keeley (1996), this paper tests and finds support for two materialist hypotheses concerning the likelihood of warfare in preindustrial societies: specifically, that, as argued by ecological–evolutionary theory, dominant mode of subsistence is systematically related to rates of warfare; and that, within some levels of technological development, higher levels of "population pressure" are associated with a greater likelihood of warfare. Using warfare measures developed by Ember and Ember (1995), measures of subsistence technology originally developed by Lenski (1966, 1970), and the standard sample of societies developed by Murdock and White (1969), this study finds evidence that warfare is more likely in advanced horticultural and agrarian societies than it is in hunting–and–gathering and simple horticultural societies, and that it is also more likely in hunting–and–gathering and agrarian societies that have above–average population densities. These findings offer substantial support for ecological–evolutionary theory and qualified but intriguing support for "population pressure" as explanations of cross–cultural variation in the likelihood of warfare.     

Divison of Labor,Perceived Fairness,and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology

This study assesses the relations between division of household labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality by comparing three ethnic‐religious groups in Israel that reflect traditional, transitional, and egalitarian ideologies. The findings, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology, show that sense of fairness mediates the relation between division of labor and marital quality and gender ideology moderates these relations for women but not for men. Perceived fairness is related to the division of labor for women in egalitarian and transitional families but not in traditional ones. For egalitarian women, a more segregated division of labor is linked directly with lower marital quality whereas for women in transitional families it is mediated by sense of fairness. The findings are discussed on two overlapping levels—conceptual‐theoretical and sociocultural—with implications for understanding families in cultural transition.     

Changing Gender Norms and Marriage Dynamics in the United States

Using a regional measure of gender norms from the General Social Surveys and marital histories from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study explored how gender norms were associated with women's marriage dynamics between 1968 and 2012. Results suggested that a higher prevalence of egalitarian gender norms predicted a decline in marriage formation. This decline was, however, only true for women without a college degree. For college‐educated women, the association between gender norms and marriage formation became positive when gender egalitarianism prevailed. The findings also revealed an inverted U‐shaped relationship between gender norms and divorce: An initial increase in divorce was observed when gender norms were predominantly traditional. The association, however, reversed as gender norms became egalitarian. No differences by education were found for divorce. The findings partially support the gender revolution framework but also highlight greater barriers to marriage for low‐educated women as societies embrace gender equality.     

Women’s Status in the Context of International Migration

International migration creates unique gendered work‐family contexts that profoundly affect individual lives in various ways. This paper examines how immigration impacts women’s status in the labor force and in the family. Immigrant women who are laborers, self‐employed entrepreneurs, and professionals experience very different changes in gender relations and work status resulting from immigration. While some become more egalitarian, others remain patriarchal; some enter the paid labor force for the first time, whereas others retreat from prominent careers to become homemakers; some are powerful in certain areas but vulnerable in others. Immigrant women’s gains and losses in their work and family domains are full of variations, contradictions, and constraints. In addition to reviewing the current state of knowledge in this area of study, this paper discusses parallels across scholarly work, inadequacies in the literature, and directions for future research.     

Labor Force Participation of Immigrant Women in the Netherlands: Do Traditional Partners Hold Them Back?

Female labor force participation (FLFP) rates often vary across ethnic groups. This study examined the role of the partner's labor market resources and gender role attitudes for FLFP in different ethnic groups. Cross‐sectional data of women in partnerships from the four biggest immigrant groups in the Netherlands and from a native Dutch control group were analyzed. Traditional gender role attitudes of partners were negatively related to FLFP and partly explained ethnic differences therein. Moreover, across all groups, the relation between partners’ labor market resources and FLFP was more negative for traditional women and rather absent for egalitarian women.     

Gender Ideology and Women's Labor Market Transitions Within Couples in the Netherlands

Objective

This study examines the role of women's and their partners' gender ideology in shaping women's labor market entries, exits, and changes in hours of employment.

Background

Recent research argues that women's gender ideology is crucial for understanding women's contemporary labor market participation. However, the role of male partners' gender ideology for partnered women's labor market participation has received less attention.

Method

The analysis uses three waves of a large‐scale household panel survey based on a random sample of individuals within Dutch households. Random‐effect models are applied to study whether women's and their partners' gender ideology are associated with women's labor market transitions and whether relevant household characteristics' associations with women's labor market transitions are conditional on both partners' gender ideology.

Results

Women's gender ideology is associated with the probability of women's labor market entries and exits, but not with changes in women's hours worked, whereas their male partners' ideology is related only to the probability of women's labor market exits. Furthermore, the negative association of having children with changes in women's hours worked is stronger for traditional compared to egalitarian women. There is no clear evidence that gender ideology moderates the association of the male partner's labor market resources with women's labor market transitions.

Conclusion

Women's labor market transitions are not only reactions to economic pressure and institutional constraints but also women's and marginally their partners' gender attitudes.     

Ecological‐Evolutionary Theory: A Reanalysis and Reassessment of Lenski's Theory for the 21st Century

Gerhard Lenski's ecological‐evolutionary theory of human societies, originally presented and tested in Power and Privilege (1966) and Human Societies (1970), makes a number of general and specific predictions about the impact of subsistence technology on the fundamental features of societies, as well as identifying constraints that the techno‐economic heritage of currently industrializing societies continue to exercise on their development trajectories. This paper reviews the strategies adopted for presenting and for testing the theory, critically analyzes and extends some important results of its empirical tests, and explores issues confronting the future development and presentation of the theory.