Conceptualizing a Global Gender Values Survey: Interdisciplinary Opportunities and Challenges

Global public opinion research is vital if we are to understand the core challenges to equality, empowerment, and peace worldwide. These surveys help us to better understand values and attitudes that influence how individuals live their lives, treat one another in society, and are governed. Studying values and value change across the globe is a challenging but vital part of social science research today. A central goal of these surveys is to provide insight into our understanding of inequality along various dimensions, and one universal line of stratification is gender. Despite the importance of understanding attitudes towards gender equality, and the potential explanatory power of gender equality measures, existing data are seriously limited. Large public opinion projects devote only about five percent of their questionnaires to gender-related items. To better understand the concept of gender as difference and a source of inequality, we must expand our questions to include a variety of neglected dimensions. This paper identifies and conceptualizes the current gaps in global public opinion measurement. These include, but are not limited to: How power is negotiated within the household (Risman 1998; Deutsch 2007); Sexuality and access to sexual health services, knowledge, and safety (Andersen and Fetner 2008; Conley, et al. 2011); Cultures of masculinity and formation of male stereotypes (Messner 1998; Connell 1995); Perceptions of sex typed labor (Williams 1992); Gendered violence (Hughes and Brush 2015). In sum, a more extensive focus on gender values, roles and behaviors in global public opinion research has tremendous promise. The Global Gender survey would be a dramatic improvement in the collection of data in these neglected areas of survey research.