Movement toward gender equality has occurred worldwide for the past century; nevertheless, some people still strongly endorse traditional gender norms. We investigated the associations of societal characteristics (gross domestic product [GDP] per capita and the gender empowerment measure) and cultural characteristics, including Hofstede’s, Schwartz’s, and Welzel’s scores (hierarchy vs. egalitarianism, person vs. social focus, mastery vs. harmony, long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity–femininity), with support for traditional household gender roles. To reveal advantageous or disadvantageous conditions for support for traditional household gender roles, we conducted a secondary data analysis with representative samples ( n = 59,713) of 41 societies collected by the International Social Survey Program. According to the multilevel modeling analysis, individuals have lower endorsement of traditional household gender roles in societies that value mastery and enjoy economic development (i.e., GDP per capita), gender equality (measured by the gender empowerment measure), and personal focus. Contrarily, individuals have higher endorsement of traditional household gender roles in societies where hierarchy, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and masculine characteristics are valued. Individual characteristics (women, work experience, education, big-city experience, and younger generations) also predict lower support for traditional household gender roles. In addition, gender differences in traditional household gender roles are larger in societies with greater economic development and personal focus and lower emphasis on hierarchy and long-term orientation. Finally, the national means of traditional household gender roles predict concurrent social movement activities and gender equality at a later time. Potential mechanisms are further discussed.

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Democracy may contribute to friendly attitudes and positive attitudes toward outgroups (i.e., outgroup tolerance) because members of democratic societies learn to exercise their rights (i.e., cast a vote) and, in the process, listen to different opinions. Study 1 was a survey study with representative samples from 33 countries (N = 45,070, 53.6% female) and it showed a positive association between the levels of democracy and outgroup tolerance after controlling for gender, age and the rate of immigrants influx from 2010 to 2013. Study 1 demonstrated that members in countries with higher political participation and civil liberty showed greater tolerance toward immigrants. In Study 2, we conducted an experimental study in Taiwan (N = 93, 67.7% female) to further examine two potential mediators (opinion sharing and voting) of the effect of democratic system on tolerance toward outgroups (i.e., attitudes toward mental patients) after controlling for gender and age. We found that when individuals were allowed to share opinions and vote, they had the highest positive other-oriented emotions toward mental patients, which in turn led to greater tolerance toward outgroups compared to those who were not allowed to share opinions or vote. In general, these results demonstrated that the democratic system plays a critical role in increasing outgroup tolerance. Limitations of the two studies and implications regarding opinion sharing, voting, democratic systems, and effects on outgroup tolerance are discussed.