Gender ideologies of youth in post-socialist China: their gender-role attitudes, antecedents, and socio-psychological impacts

Abstract

In dialogue with the new gender ideology “egalitarian essentialism” which reveals uneven transformation of gender equity in public and private spheres, this study looks into the nuanced gender ideologies among Chinese youth, their antecedents and socio-psychological impacts on the young people. We apply latent class analysis to data on gender-role attitudes that were collected in 12 vocational colleges in China (N = 4,793). The three gender ideology profiles that we identify—egalitarian, essentialist, and neutral groups—demonstrate an alternative version of “egalitarian essentialism” in post-socialist China which highlights that a continuation of egalitarian attitudes in families co-exists with a growth of essentialist attitudes in employment. Furthermore, multivariate analysis shows that the three gender ideology profiles are structured primarily by sex and socio-economic backgrounds. We also find that the gender ideologies contribute to the prediction of the youth’s subjective well-being, especially their future expectations and psychological distress—the relations that have been under-researched in previous studies in China.