Everything changes but nothing changes: gender stereotypes in the Italian population

Abstract

Purpose Gender stereotypes refer to consensual or cultural shared beliefs about the attributes of men and women, influencing society behaviors, interpersonal relationships, education, and workplace. The literature has shown the existence of gender stereotypes on career choices, internalization of roles, and school and social experiences and demonstrates the impact of demographic factors on stereotypes. However, all the studies conducted in Italy available in scientific literature analyzed small sample sizes within specific schools of university settings, with a limited age range. Methods To assess the current state of gender stereotypes in Italy, we conducted an online survey from October 2022 to January 2023 on the general population residing in Italy. The questionnaire comprised sociodemographic factors and questions about gender stereotypes, investigating six fields: games, jobs, personality traits, home and family activities, sports, and moral judgments. Results The study involved 1854 participants, mostly women (70.1%) with an undergraduate or postgraduate degree (57.5%). The statistical and descriptive analyses revealed that gender stereotypes influenced respondents’ beliefs, with statistically significant effects observed in most questions when stratifying by age, gender, and degree. Principal component analysis was performed to assess latent variables in different fields, revealing significant main stereotypes in each category. No statistically significant differences between men and women were found for the fields home and family activities, games, and moral judgments, confirming that stereotypes affect both men and women in the same way. Conclusions Our results show the persistence of gender stereotypes in any fields investigated, although our cohort is predominantly composed of high educational level women living in the North of Italy. This demonstrates that the long-standing gender stereotypes are prevalent, pernicious, and, unfortunately, internalized at times even by successful women pushbacking and sabotaging them unconsciously.