Changing Attitudes Toward Women's Nonfamily Roles

Abstract

On the assumption that popular sex-role attitudes and beliefs change in response to long-term technologlcal, demographic, and economic trends, this research tests the extent to which attitude change first occurs among collectivities which benefit most, economically, from new conditions. The theory is tested using data on two questions related to women's status which have been replicated between 1938 and 1978 in AIPO, the GSS, and our own 1978 national probability telephone survey. The results provide some support for the theory, as well as evidence of large period effects. The increase in favorable responses in the 1970s appears more as a recovery from the 1960s than as a revolutionary leap forward.