Democratic Citizenship and Attitudes Towards Gender Equality in East Asian Democracies

초록

This study examines attitudes towards gender equality in East Asia. Though East Asian democracies have advanced rapidly, little systematic effort has been made to study why negative attitudes towards gender equality continue to persist. Using a gender index that examines attitudes towards politics, education, and business leadership, I find that most individuals maintain traditional views of gender on all three dimensions in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. However, regression analyses using data from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey also illustrate a strong association between democratic citizenship, particularly the cognitive dimension, and support for gender equality. This indicates that, though views of gender equality remain far from liberal in East Asia, increasing awareness and understandings of democracy as a concept may increase support for gender equality and possibly challenge existing patriarchal traditions of East Asian societies in the future.

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