Attitudes on Family Roles and Gender

Respondents were also asked a series of questions about their attitudes toward family caregiving responsibilities and gender roles. There was far more agreement than disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on all these questions, especially those about caregiving. For example, well more than three-quarters of male respondents believe that care work at home is valuable to society, with no significant differences by party (91 percent of Democrat, 87 percent of Republican, 85 percent of Independent men). While even more women than men agree with this statement, there was not a significant difference between Democratic and Republican women (93 percent and 95 percent, respectively, compared to 82 percent of Independent women). Similarly, respondents who were caregivers said that they were proud to talk with friends and family about the role they play in caring for their families, with no differences by party (or by gender) (81 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Independents).

While there were notable attitudinal differences between respondents based on party identification, the size of the differences was consistently dwarfed by the similarities, especially between Democratic and Republican respondents. For example, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say that men and women should share caregiving responsibilities equally, but this difference is only 6 percentage points, while the vast majority of both groups (91 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Republicans) agreed with equal sharing of responsibility (Independents were in between, at 87 percent agreement).

The largest differences between respondents of the two major parties were about specific gender roles, with Republicans more likely than Democrats to think that the genders should have different, traditional roles, even if they share equally in overall responsibility. Just over half of Republicans (51 percent) and a third of Democrats (37 percent) agreed that men and women are equally responsible to care for their families, but men’s role should be financial support, while women should run the household. Republican men and women were equally likely to agree with this gendered division of roles, but there was a 6 percentage point difference between Democratic men and women (40 percent versus 34 percent agreed, respectively). Republicans and Independents were also more likely than Democrats to agree with the statement “It’s okay for men to do some care work, but women are better suited to do more of it,” although this was not a majority view among any group (34 percent of Democrats versus 44 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Independents). Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats to say that being an involved father is an important part of being a man, but this was only a 5 percentage point difference, compared to over three-quarters of all respondents accepting this attitude about a father’s role (87 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of Independents).

Despite these marginal differences in attitudes about traditional gender roles, there is widespread agreement on the value of caregiving and importance of men and women sharing responsibility for it.