Abstract:
Social role theory posits that binary gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in less egalitarian countries, reflect ing these countries’ more pronounced sex-based power divisions. Conversely, evolutionary and self-construal theorists suggest
that gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in more egalitarian countries, reflecting the greater autonomy sup port and flexible self-construction processes present in these countries. Using data from 62 countries (N = 28,640), we examine
binary gender gaps in agentic and communal self-views as a function of country-level objective gender equality (the Global
Gender Gap Index) and subjective distributions of social power (the Power Distance Index). Findings show that in more egalitar ian countries, gender gaps in agency are smaller and gender gaps in communality are larger. These patterns are driven primarily
by cross-country differences in men’s self-views and by the Power Distance Index (PDI) more robustly than the Global Gender
Gap Index (GGGI). We consider possible causes and implications of these findings.
