Value Priorities and Gender

Abstract

We used theories of gender and research on values to generate hypotheses about the impact on value priorities of gender differences and of interactions of gender with possible sociodemographic moderators of gender experience: age, education, and ethnicity. An Israeli national sample revealed no main effects of gender on the importance attributed to any of 10 different types of values, nor any interactions with age, education, or ethnicity. The latter all showed substantial, predicted effects on value priorities. Structural analyses of value systems revealed that the values had quite similar meanings for men and for women. We discuss explanations for the absence of gender differences in value priorities in this study and propose directions for future studies.