Culture and gender as predictors of undergraduates’ perception of gender roles.

Abstract

The study examined culture, and gender as predictors of gender-roles perception among undergraduates. Participants were drawn from two universities; one in the North Central and the other in the South Western regions of Nigeria. A questionnaire comprising thirty home-related activities was administered to 522 respondents from the two universities. A total of 284 of them were from the northern university (180 males and 104 females) while the remaining 238 were drawn from the southern university (109 males and 129 females). The number and percentage of respondents who considered each of the tasks as appropriate for man, woman or either of the two were calculated. Chi2 test was used to compare the responses of the four groups of respondents The results indicated that both culture and gender determine perception of gender-roles. The southern participants showed greater flexibility in their perception. (i.e. they considered more jobs as appropriate for either of the two sexes). Furthermore, the tendency to perceive most tasks as appropriate for women was found more among the southern female participants than the other three groups. The findings were attributed to differences in levels of urbanization, educational attainment of parents and cultural values.