Gender Roles and Threat Perception Due to Globalization

• In Event: The Politics of the Backlash Against Globalization: Discourse, and Attitudes

Abstract

Men and women hold different views on globalization (e.g., Mansfield and Mutz 2009, Guisinger 2016; Kerner, Sumner, and Richter 2020). This project takes a novel approach to understanding why. We propose that what separates men and womens’ attitudes is not gender as much as a belief in traditional gender roles relating to the workforce. The American labor market is such that some jobs, particularly in manufacturing, are coded “male” and others, especially in services, are coded as “female”. Globalization is often seen as having a greater impact on “male” jobs. By threatening “male” jobs, globalization gains a special political resonance among individuals-- regardless of gender -- who consider that the male role as breadwinner is socially crucial. To these individuals, globalization is a threat not only to their economic prospects, but also to their underlying cultural values. We test these hypotheses using a new survey that integrates measures of implicit attitudes with conventional globalization survey questions.

Authors

• Andrew Kerner, Michigan State University

• Jane Lawrence Sumner, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities