Previous research has shown a prevailing ‘modern gender gap’ in socio-political attitudes in advanced capitalist economies. While numerous studies have confirmed gender differences in attitudes towards the welfare state in Europe, few have addressed the reason for this rift in men’s and women’s views about the role of government in ensuring the general welfare of citizens. In this article, I examine the relationship between gender equality in unpaid labour, family policy and the gender gap in welfare state attitudes. Based on data from 21 countries participating in the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 4, and using a mix of country- and individual-level regression models and multilevel models, I find that there is a clear relationship between country-level gender equality in unpaid labour and gender differences in support of an encompassing welfare state. A more equal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work correlates with women being increasingly supportive of a large and encompassing welfare state, in comparison with men. This pattern holds when controlling for individual-level economic risk and resources, cultural factors such as trust and social values traditionally related to the support of an encompassing welfare state, and beliefs about welfare state efficiency and consequences for society in general. This pattern is evident for countries with a low level of familistic policies, while no distinguishable pattern is discernible for highly familistic countries. These findings have implications for the perception of gender as an emergent social cleavage with respect to welfare state attitudes. The results are discussed in the light of institutional theories on policy feedback, familism, social role theory and previous findings relating to modernization theory and ‘gender realignment’.

中文翻译：

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欧洲福利国家态度中的性别差距：无偿劳动和家庭政策的作用

先前的研究表明，发达的资本主义经济体在社会政治态度上普遍存在“现代性别差距”。尽管许多研究证实了欧洲对福利国家的态度存在性别差异，但很少有人解决男女在政府对确保公民整体福利方面所起的作用产生这种分歧的原因。在本文中，我研究了无偿劳动中的性别平等，家庭政策与福利国家态度中的性别差距之间的关系。根据参加欧洲社会调查（ESS）第4轮的21个国家/地区的数据，并结合使用国家和个人/水平回归模型和多水平模型，我发现，国家一级的无偿劳动性别平等与支持一个全面福利国家的性别差异之间存在着明显的关系。与男子相比，无偿照料和家务劳动的分配更加平等，这意味着妇女越来越多地支持一个庞大而全面的福利国家。在控制个人层面的经济风险和资源，传统上与​​包容性福利国家的支持有关的文化因素（例如信任和社会价值）以及对福利国家效率和对社会的总体影响的信念时，这种模式将适用。对于家庭政策水平低的国家，这种模式很明显，而对于家庭政策高度偏高的国家，则没有明显的区别。这些发现对于将性别视为关于福利国家态度的新兴社会分裂有一定意义。将根据有关政策反馈，家庭主义，社会角色理论的机构理论以及与现代化理论和“性别调整”相关的先前发现来讨论研究结果。