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Gender Equality, Liberalism and Attitude Toward Prostitution: Variation in Cross-National Study

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Abstract

The current study tested the relationship between attitudes toward gender equality and attitudes toward prostitution by employing an international sample of 48,630 subjects in 54 countries from the fifth wave (2005–2007) of the World Values Survey. Unlike previous studies, the current mixed level logistic regression results found no fixed effect between an individual’s gender equality attitude and attitude toward prostitution. However, the findings on other variables suggested that liberals are more likely to have a somewhat more favorable attitude toward prostitution than conservatives. Those who hold a higher social status, who are less religious, and who do not have a strong belief in marriage are more likely to have a somewhat favorable attitude toward prostitution.

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Notes

  1. According to Stack et al., survival culture refers to a cultural system that emphasizes material security, and they conceived of survival culture as a very broad concept that includes prejudice, authoritarianism, intolerance, dichotomous thinking, religious fundamentalism, and political conservatism. Conversely, self-expressionist culture stresses individualism or self-expression. Stack et al. reported that high survivalist culture is connected to a low tolerance of prostitution.

  2. The information on GDP per capita for Andorra, Serbia, and Taiwan was not available from the UNDP’s Human Development Report. Thus, this information was sourced from the CIA World Fact Book (2005).

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Correspondence to Don Soo Chon.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Table 5

Table 5 Zero-order correlation matrix

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Chon, D.S. Gender Equality, Liberalism and Attitude Toward Prostitution: Variation in Cross-National Study. J Fam Viol 30, 827–838 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9713-y

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