Despite a large theoretical and empirical literature on the relevance of gender ideology for
family processes, little is known on how gender attitudes vary around the world. Likewise,
cross-national variation in education gradients or gender differences in gender ideology
remains poorly understood. Our study fills this gap, and provides a comprehensive overview
of averages, education gradients, and sex differences in three dimensions of gender ideology
across 38 countries. Furthermore, we examine the relative importance of education versus
country context for one’s own gender ideology. Using data from the International Social
Survey Programme (ISSP) 2012 and factor analyses, we show that education gradients in
gender ideology tend to be larger than gender gradients, but that education gradients vary
considerably between country clusters. In addition, from a comparative perspective, country
context seems to be much more decisive for one’s own gender ideology than educational
attainment