Average support for gender equality worldwide has plateaued, in part because of higher population growth in countries where support is low and higher fertility among those with less egalitarian views. Public support for women’s equal participation in education, paid work, and politics has increased in many countries but stagnated globally. Plamen Akaliyski, Catherine Bowen, and colleagues turned to the World Values Survey and European Values Study, which cover 86% of the global population, to explore dynamics in gender equality opinions around the world. The authors analyzed data from 78 countries from 1995 to 2022, focusing on three questions regarding women’s equal right to paid work, the equal importance of university education for boys and girls, and women’s equal suitability as political leaders. The results indicate that Western countries are trending more egalitarian. Western countries, however, show slow or even negative population growth. Conversely, countries in West and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North African-Islamic cultural zones have become less egalitarian over time and show high population growth. A similar pattern also occurs at the individual level. In the most recent wave of the World Values Survey and European Values Study, women with less egalitarian views had more children by the time they reached their 40s and also had children earlier in life. As parents tend to transmit their gender-related views to their children, differential fertility is likely to raise the proportion of people with less egalitarian views within national populations. According to the authors, differential population growth and differential fertility within countries have counteracted the trend toward increasing gender egalitarianism.
PNAS Nexus
Demographic processes constrain global growth in gender egalitarianism
26-May-2026