Country-of-origin gender ideology and immigrants’ gender role attitudes toward women’s employment

Using cross-classified models and data from the European Social Survey, this article studies whether and under what conditions cultural values associated to gender roles in the country of origin influence immigrants’ gender roles attitudes across different countries of destination. The sample is composed of first- and second-generation immigrants living in 32 destination countries and from 95 countries of origin. The findings show that immigrants’ gender role attitudes can be, in part, attributed to their country of origin but also depend on the context in which they reside. The role played by the country-of-origin gender ideology weakens for second-generation and longresiding immigrants. Furthermore, our results show that the gender ideology at destination is also¡ positively associated to immigrants’ gender role attitudes. Nevertheless, immigrants living in more traditional destinations with respect to their country of origin are less inclined to adapt their gender role attitudes to the context of destination.Léa Pessin gratefully acknowledges financial support during her PhD from the European Research Council through the advanced ERC Grant ERC-2010-AdG-269387 (Family polarization, P.I. Gøsta Esping-Andersen) and during her postdoctoral fellowship from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Population Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University for Population Research Infrastructure (P2CHD041025) and Family Demography Training (T32-HD007514)