Can higher education improve egalitarian gender role attitudes? Evidence from China
利用中国高等教育扩招作为准自然实验，研究发现高等教育提升了女性的职业相关性别平等态度和行为，但对婚姻态度和男性态度影响有限，且受儒家文化和婚姻匹配模式影响。
Egalitarian gender role attitudes are crucial for empowering women across household, labor market , and political spheres; however, the evolution of these attitudes remains underexplored. This study examines the impact of higher education on gender role attitudes using a quasi-natural experiment based on China's higher education expansion. The data are obtained from the China Family Panel Studies. Our results reveal that this expansion considerably enhanced higher education attainment for men and women; however, the effects on gender role attitudes are asymmetric. While higher education positively influences women's career-related gender norms, it does not substantially impact their marriage-related attitudes or men's gender role attitudes. Moreover, attaining higher education also improves women's career-related gender equality behaviors. Further analysis indicates that these divergent impacts are attributable to patriarchal Confucian culture, educated women's superior labor market performance, and the lack of gender equality education. We also consider the role of marriage-matching patterns, whereby women tend to marry partners with higher education and greater earnings, which reinforces traditional gender roles in marriage.