Cultural value orientation and gender equity: a review

Abstract

In the recent past, gender issues have grabbed substantial attention from social scientists, activists and academic fraternity. Right from family to workplace to society at large, attempts have been initiated to advocate equal rights for women in different spheres of life. Despite social activists and policy makers striving hard towards gender sensitization, gender discrimination still persists in various domains of life. Therefore, there is a strong need to identify the factors that potentially determine people’s attitude towards gender equity. With this very objective, the current study examines existing literature on gender discrimination and its association with Hofstede’s (1980) cultural values. Following the “Gender-Organization-System Approach”, the present study postulates that gender equality or inequality results from a complex interaction of individual, organizational and societal factors and that it cannot be explained in isolation from the broader socio-cultural milieu. Extensive review of literature indicates that cultural values are significant predictors of people’s attitude towards gender equity and that the extent to which people conform to existing gender roles determine how much people support the idea of gender equality. The study has significant practical implications since, by means of detecting such “causal factors”, more positive attitudinal changes can be brought about and gender egalitarian attitudes can be cultivated.