Since the 1960’s we have seen an increase of liberal opinions regarding the place of women in society and policies in the same sense. Most countries have implemented laws and specific actions to narrow the gender gap among their citizens: countries have been responsive to this liberalization of opinions. However, most empirical studies primarily focus on the interplay between public opinion and policy, and most commonly on how political outputs or governments respond to their publics. While this provides us with important insights into the connection between public opinion and politics, it leaves other aspects of responsiveness largely unexplored. Particularly, only few studies explore the actual origins of public opinion towards gender roles, and how they generally respond to different environmental mechanics.
We set out to analyse what we call environmental responsiveness by directly applying it. More specifically, we use data from the Global Public Opinions Project to examine to what extent public opinion towards gender roles responds to its environment, and particularly its institutional surroundings. While we account for a number of societal mechanics such as gender divisions, age distribution and country context, we propose three conceptual interpretations of the environment that might affect public opinion. First, in line with the traditional public opinion literature, we theorise the economic environment contributes to the formation of opinions and beliefs regarding gender roles. Second, we argue public opinion towards gender roles also responds to its political environment, particularly the share of women in the legislature and the presence of socially liberal parties in power. Third, in the idea of responsiveness, we also explore if countries with more liberal opinions towards gender roles have indeed narrow the gap between men and women.