Dr. Claudia Buchmann, OSU, ASC Distinguished Professor of Sociology
Dr. David Melamed, OSU, Associate Professor of Sociology
Theme: Gender Inequality
Title of Talk: Changing Gender Status Beliefs in the U.S. Population: Implications for Gender Inequality
Abstract: We draw on research on status processes and cultural change to develop predictions about gender status beliefs in the United States. We expect that 1) while explicitly men and women may not distinguish competency and worth by gender, they do so implicitly, 2) that younger respondents, especially women, hold less consensual gender status beliefs, and 3) men are less likely to alter their gender status beliefs due to loss aversion. We conduct two studies to assess these arguments. The first uses novel nationally-representative data to describe the distributions of status beliefs in the US population; the second demonstrates the importance of these beliefs for allocating rewards by gender. Combined, the studies demonstrate the distribution of gender status beliefs by age and gender. They also underscore the role of cultural status beliefs for maintaining gender stratification and the potential role of cohort change for changing such beliefs.
A reminder that all participants need to register in order to participate in the fall seminar series. The link to the registration is here: https://osu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMqdeuurT4pGtYpugjkDPxlO-EechsTva2w
