Modernity in Women: An Index of Social Change in Brazil

Abstract

The relationship of industrialization to some family-linked attitudes and behavior of women were examined in five markedly different Brazilian communities. Each community was selected to represent a point on a rural-urban-industrial continuum. Data were collected through interviews with 816 married, fertile women about their attitudes and behavior as regards their roles as women, wives and mothers. Interview items were factor analyzed and two indexes of modernity derived. Women in industrial communities were found, on the average, to have a greater sense of personal efficacy, enjoy more egalitarian relationships with their husbands, place a greater emphasis on independence and achievement in the socialization of their children and perceived the world in a more activistic perspective than women in nonindustrial milieu. Modernity in women tends to increase with level of education, skill of occupation, social status and membership in voluntary associations; it is inversely related to family size, both preferred and actual.