Professional Documents
Culture Documents
J. Jill Suitor*
Dorothy Mecom
Susana Guerra
Kim Gusman
Department of Sociology
We wish to thank Scott Feld, Yoshinori Kamo, Michael Patterson, Karl Pillemer, and Monisa
Shackelford for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.
Please direct all correspondence to J. Jill Suitor, Department of Sociology, Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 (jsuitor@lsu.edu).
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES:
Abstract
In this paper we use data from the General Social Survey (1977-1998) to examine the
effects of region on gender-role attitudes, focusing on variations by gender and race. The
southern culture which includes more traditional gender-role attitudes. Further, the findings
indicate that region plays as important a role in explaining Black women’s gender-role attitudes
as those of white men and women. In contrast to our hypotheses, both southern Black and white
women held substantially more traditional gender-role attitudes than did their northern
counterparts, suggesting that the persistence of southern distinctiveness cannot be accounted for
regional differences in actual behaviors and beliefs about the existence of regional differences
have shown several consistent patterns across the past three decades. Southerners are expected,
both by themselves and by non-Southerners, to be more sociable (Reed 1972, 1993), religious
(Reed 1972, 1993), traditional regarding both moral issues and gender roles (Hurlbert 1989;
Hurlbert and Bankston, 1998; Twenge 1997), and "fun-loving" (Reed 1972, 1993).
While much of the literature has focused on the existence of regional differences, a new
line of work in this area has begun exploring changes in the strength of these differences across
time. These studies have shown with great consistency that social attitudes have become less
conservative across time throughout the country, and that regional differences on these issues
have declined (DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson 1996; Rice and Coates 1995; Weakliem and
Biggert 1999). Four of these studies have included the attitudes regarding women’s roles
(Hurlbert 1989; Hurlbert and Bankston 1998; DiMaggio et al. 1996; Rice and Coates 1995).
Using consecutive cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey, all four studies reported
that Southerners continue to hold more traditional gender-role attitudes than do the rest of the
country, but that regional differences have become less pronounced across time.
Two issues that these studies did not examine were whether regional differences in
gender-role attitudes vary by gender and race, and whether the degree of change in regionality
across time differs across subgroups. Research on subgroup differences in gender-role attitudes
1
suggest that there may, in fact, be such variations in regionality (cf. Kozimor-King and Leicht
1999; Suitor and Carter 1999; Twenge 1997), as well as in changes in regionality across time
(Kozimor-King and Leicht 1999; Twenge 1997). The purpose of this paper is to address these
two questions, using data from the General Social Survey from 1977 to 1998.
Theoretical and empirical literatures provide strong justification for exploring predictors
of gender-role attitudes separately by gender and race. This line of work argues that attitudes
vary by race and gender, and that somewhat different factors affect attitudes across these
subgroups, leading to the expectation that region might also have differential effects by race and
gender.
Gender and Regionality. The theoretical literature on gender has argued for several
decades that men’s and women’s perceptions differ considerably, almost certainly producing
differences in attitudes. Across the past three decades, discussions ranging from scholarly
discourses by Chodorow (1978), Gilligan (1982; 1990) and Hey (1997) to popular books, such as
Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992) and Tannen's You Just Don't
Understand (1990) have suggested that men’s and women’s perceptions differ, particularly
regarding social phenomena. Specifically, they have argued that faced with the same
information, men and women, as well as boys and girls, develop markedly different
substantial differences in women’s and men’s attitudes and perceptions regarding social issues,
particularly gender-role attitudes (Beutel and Marini 1995; DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson 1996;
2
Kane 1992; Pratto, Stallworth, and Sidanius 1997; Rice and Coates 1995; Suitor, Carter, and
Minyard, 2000). Specifically, this work has shown that women’s gender-role attitudes are more
egalitarian than are men’s regarding family roles, women’s employment, and women’s
Further, the factors that explain gender-role attitudes vary somewhat by gender. Some
factors, such as age, educational attainment, and religiosity have been found to be important in
explaining both women’s and men’s attitudes (Liao and Cai 1995; Willetts-Bloom and Nock
1994). However, marital status and employment status, which are important predictors of
women’s gender-role attitudes are of no consequence in terms of men’s attitudes (Kiecolt and
This literature indicates clearly that there are gender differences in both gender-role
attitudes and their predictors, but this does not provide a clear basis for developing specific
hypotheses regarding differences in the effects of region on women and men. However, findings
regarding regional differences in attitudes can be used as a basis for developing hypotheses
regarding the interaction of gender and region. In particular, although both women and men are
exposed to the more traditional attitudes generally held in the south, behavioral expectations
regarding gender for southern women are substantially more clearly defined and more culturally
mandated than they are for men (cf. Suitor and Carter 1999).
In sum, the men’s and women’s gender-role attitudes appear to diverge and are explained
by a somewhat different set of factors. This, combined with the greater emphasis of
traditionalism for women than for men in the south led us to anticipate that the effect of region
3
Race and Regionality. The literature on race and gender-role attitudes provides a far less
consistent picture than does the literature on gender and attitudes. Theoretical arguments suggest
that Blacks, because of their less privileged position in American society, are more sensitive to
social issues, particularly those involving inequality (Hunter and Sellers 1998; Kamo and Cohen
1996; Kane 1992). On this basis, the argument could be made that for both men and women,
Blacks would be expected to hold more egalitarian gender-role attitudes. However, alternatively,
some scholars presenting theoretical perspectives on gender and race have emphasized that the
less predictable economic status faced by Black men than white men may lead them to be mixed
but traditional in terms of women’s family roles with the goal of providing a venue in which
Black men can exert some sense of power and control (Kamo and Cohen 1996; Wade 1996).
The somewhat contradictory theoretical arguments regarding Black men’s attitudes have
been well supported by the empirical literature. Consistently, Black men have been found to hold
more egalitarian attitudes than white men regarding women’s employment, while simultaneously
holding the same or more traditional attitudes regarding women’s family roles than have their
white counterparts (Blee and Tickamyer 1995; Kamo and Cohen 1996; Kane 1992; Rice and
Coates 1995). Further confusing the picture is the finding that Black men contribute more to
domestic labor than do white men (Hossain and Roopnarine 1993; John, Shelton, and Luschen
The pattern differs somewhat for Black women. Black women have been found to hold
the most egalitarian attitudes of all four gender/race combinations regarding women’s
4
employment, but hold the same, or in some cases, slightly more traditional attitudes than white
women regarding family roles (Kane 1992; Rice and Coates 1995). However, despite the slightly
greater traditionalism regarding family roles, Black women’s overall gender-role attitudes scores
consistently place them as the most egalitarian of all four race/gender groups (Hunter and Sellers
1998; Kamo and Cohen 1996; Kane 1992; Rice and Coates 1995).
Although there are some inconsistencies, this literature suggests that Black men and
women hold more liberal attitudes, overall, than do their white counterparts, although the race
difference is not consistent across all dimensions of gender-role attitudes. However, this does
not address the question of whether the effects of region on gender-role attitudes vary by race.
The theoretical argument discussed above regarding social disadvantage (Hunter and Sellers
1998; Kamo and Cohen 1996; Kane 1992) leads to the hypothesis that there will be a
substantially greater effect of region on Black men’s than white men’s gender-role attitudes, with
southern Black men holding more egalitarian attitudes. This is because being at a societal
disadvantage increases sensitivity to social issues, and Black men in the south are at a greater
disadvantage, relative to white men, than are Black men in other regions (Kuklinski et al. 1997).
However, classic relative deprivation arguments (cf. Hegtvedt and Markovsky 1995;
Snow and Oliver 1995) would lead to the opposite hypothesis. Relative deprivation theories
suggest that individuals or members of groups who are objectively not disadvantaged may
commensurate with their expectations or with the individuals or groups to whom they compare
themselves. Thus, although Black men in the north may face fewer objective obstacles to
equality than do their southern counterparts, their expectations may be higher than those of
5
southern Blacks, leading to perceptions of greater inequality. On this basis, we would expect not
only that region would affect Black men more strongly than their white counterparts, but that the
Taken together, both of these theoretical arguments lead us to anticipate that region will
have a greater effect on Black than on white men. However, they also lead us to two equally
plausible alternative arguments regarding whether southern or northern Black men will hold
more egalitarian gender-role attitudes. Therefore, we will examine both of these alternative
We believe that the same arguments can be used to develop parallel alternative
hypotheses regarding the relationships among race, region, and attitudes for women. Thus, as in
the case of men, we will explore both hypotheses, rather than proposing a single hypothesis. It is
important to note that anticipating egalitarian attitudes among Black southern women might
initially appear to contradict our earlier hypothesis regarding greater traditionalism among
southern women. However, the expectation of greater pressure toward traditionalism for women
in the south grows from a “southern belle” tradition that was specific to white women; thus, for
Black women, privilege and sensitivity to inequality may be stronger than regional pressures
The final issue that we address in the analysis is differential changes in gender-role
attitudes across time; specifically, do changes in regional differences in gender-role attitudes vary
by either gender or race? Twenge’s (1997) and Kozimor-King and Leicht’s (1999) investigations
provide the greatest insight on these issues, although they do not provide an entirely consistent
6
picture of change. Both studies focused on changes in gender-role attitudes across time, one
using the General Social Survey (Kozimor-King and Leicht 1999) and the other using data from
Both studies reported that gender-role attitudes had become more egalitarian across time;
however, the subgroup variations in change across time were not mirrored in the two studies.
Kozimor-King and Leicht’s analysis, using data on women only, revealed a somewhat
inconsistent pattern. Change was greatest among two subgroups—those that began with the most
traditional attitudes, specifically, women who were older and who were married, and, conversely,
women with nontraditional jobs, who began with egalitarian attitudes. Twenge’s (1997) meta-
analysis using data on both women and men revealed patterns that were both internally
inconsistent and inconsistent with Kozimor-King and Leicht’s findings. In contrast to Kozimor-
King and Leicht, Twenge found that men, the gender subgroup that began with the most
traditional attitudes, showed substantially less change than did women. However, Twenge’s
analyses of regional differences suggested a pattern of greatest change among those who began
with the most traditional attitudes—southern women experienced the greatest overall change,
beginning with scores substantially more traditional than those of women in other regions in the
early 1970s and moving to parity with women from other regions by the mid 1990s.
Taken together, these studies do not provide a consistent pattern of empirical findings
upon which to base hypotheses regarding which of the four race/gender subgroups will
experience the greatest effect of the interaction between region and time. The predominant
pattern shown by these studies suggests that the interactive effect of region and time will be
greatest among women, however, it is not clear whether the effects will be larger for Black or
7
white women. Similarly, we do not feel that there is a sufficiently sound empirical basis from
these studies to develop hypotheses regarding differential effects of this interaction on Black and
white men.
In the absence of clear empirical findings upon which to base our hypotheses, we will
return to the theoretical arguments outlined above regarding the effects of relative privilege and
social sensitivity. This perspective would lead us to hypothesize that the greatest effect of the
interaction of time and region would be among white men, who, as a group, would have begun
with the greatest relative privilege and most traditional attitudes in 1977, followed by white
women, Black men, and finally Black women, who began with low privilege and, overall, the
Summary of Hypotheses
1. The effect of region on gender-role attitudes will be greater for women than men.
2. The effect of region on gender-role attitudes will be greater for Blacks than whites, regardless
of gender.
3: H3a. Southern Blacks will hold more egalitarian attitudes than will northern Blacks,
regardless of gender.
H3b. Northern Blacks will hold more egalitarian attitudes than will southern Blacks,
regardless of gender.
4. The effect of the interaction of time and region will be greatest for white men, followed by
8
METHODS
Data
The data for our study were drawn from the National Opinion Research Center’s General
Social Surveys for 1977-1998. The GSS is a cross-sectional national survey that has been
replicated almost every year since 1972. The survey is administered to English-speaking persons
aged 18 years and over in the continental United States. Our subsample includes the 13,708
respondents who answered the questions that compose the gender-role attitudes scale.
The subsample used in the analysis ranged in age from 18 to 89 years (_=45.17,
s.d.=17.3). Fifty-four per cent were married. Nine per cent had completed less than high school,
32 % had competed high school, 23% had completed some college, and 22% were college
graduates. Twenty-five per cent of the respondents were Catholic, 61% were Protestant, and 14%
were members of other religious denominations or reported no religious affiliation. Thirteen per
cent of the respondents were Black, and 87% were white. Fifty-seven per cent were women;
43% were men. Fifty-two per cent were employed full-time (37 or more hours per week), 10.%
Measurement
Gender Role Attitudes. We constructed the dependent variable by combining the four
items specific to attitudes regarding women’s family roles. Respondents were asked to what
extent they agreed (4) or disagreed (1) with each of the following statements: a) A working
mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who
does not work; b) It is more important for a wife to help her husband’s career than to have one
herself; c) A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works; and d) It is much
9
better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes
care of the home and family. The alpha reliability coefficient for the scale was .70. The scale
Independent Variables
REGION which lists nine areas within the United States in which a respondent may reside. The
regions corresponded with the following nine Census division categories: New England, middle
Atlantic, east north central, west north central, south Atlantic, east south central, west south
central, mountain and Pacific. For our analysis, we collapsed these nine regions into four
general regions: south (east south central, west south central, south Atlantic), northeast (New
England), Pacific, and other (west north central, east north central, mountain, and middle
Atlantic).
Year of Survey. A key question of our study addresses the change of gender role attitudes
over time. In the bivariate relationships shown in Tables 2 and 3 we have collapsed the years
into five categories: 1977, 1985, 1986-1989, 1990-1995, 1996-1998. For the multivariate
analysis we computed a variable of number of years since the first data collection point (year
minus1977). We created this variable to avoid the collinearity that would have occurred if we
had used the actual years of data collection (e.g., 1977, 1985, etc.).
Gender and Race. Gender was coded 0=man, 1=woman. To determine race, respondents
were asked, “What race do you consider yourself?” For the present analysis, race was
10
selecting factors that have been shown to be related to either gender-role attitudes or region.
These variables include: age, educational attainment, marital status, employment status, religious
affiliation, and religiosity. Age was used as the actual number of years of age respondents
reported (18-89), as was educational attainment (0-20 years). Marital status was collapsed into
two categories: 0=unmarried, 1=married. Employment status was dichotomized into employed
full-time and not employed full-time (full- time=1), based on literature demonstrating that the
employment statuses (Cassidy and Warren 1996). Religious affiliation was collapsed into three
categories: Protestant, Catholic, and other. Dummy variables for religious affiliation were created
for use in the multivariate analysis; “other” was the reference category. Religiosity was
Bivariate correlations of all of the variables included in the multivariate analysis are
shown, along with means and standard deviations, in Table 1. The data are shown separately by
gender.
RESULTS
and gender (within race) and year by region. Both of these analyses reveal that gender-role
attitudes have become more egalitarian across time for all subgroups; however, there were
11
Examination of the mean gender-role attitude scores of men and women from 1977-1998
reveals an increase in egalitarian gender-role attitudes across time, as shown in Table 2. For both
Black and white women, the increase in egalitarian attitudes is continuous from 1977-1998, thus
also indicating that further change has occurred from the mid to the late 1990s. Consistent with
studies of gender-role attitudes from the 1970s through the mid 1990s, the attitudes of Black
women are consistently more egalitarian than are those of white women. Further, consistent
with studies through the mid 1990s, both Black and white women’s attitudes are more egalitarian
Changes in men’s attitudes are less consistent from the 1970s through the 1990s.
Examination of the data for the full sample of men shows more rapid change from 1977 through
the mid 1990s, and essentially no change from the mid to late 1990s. However, the pattern
becomes more complex when considering Black and white men’s attitudes separately. Among
white men, attitudes became more egalitarian from 1977 through the mid 1990s, after which
there was no further increase. In contrast, among Black men, gender-role attitudes became
increasingly egalitarian from 1977 through the late 1980s, but did not increase across the early to
mid 1990s; however, Black men’s attitudes began to move again toward egalitarianism between
the mid and late 1990s, representing the only statistically significant change in attitudes between
Table 2 reveals not only that white men began and ended the period of the study holding
more traditional attitudes than the other three subsamples, but also that this subsample
experienced the least change in attitudes. In contrast, white women experienced the greatest
change in attitudes, differing substantially from the change experienced by white men, while
12
there was no gender difference in degree of change among Blacks.
Throughout the period during which the data were collected, respondents living on the south
continued to express the most traditional gender-role attitudes, while respondents in the northeast
almost uniformly expressed the most egalitarian attitudes. While remaining the most traditional
in the period from 1996-1998, the south experienced substantially more change from traditional
to egalitarian attitudes than did either the northeast or Pacific, both of which both began and
The analyses just presented suggest that, in fact, there are considerable differences in
changes in gender-role attitudes by gender, race and regionality, at least at the bivariate level.
The next question is whether these relationships are maintained when controlling for other
factors that are related to either regionality or gender-role attitudes–in particular, educational
attainment, marital status, religiosity, religious affiliation, and age. Because our interest is in
examining how the entire model varies by gender and race, we conducted separate regression
analyses, rather than relying on race/gender interaction terms. It is important to note that all of
the preliminary multivariate analyses indicated that the effects of region except for south/not
south were of neither substantive nor statistical significance; for this reason, we used a
As shown in Table 4, the multivariate findings using the full sample closely mirror those
13
reported in the literature. The best predictor of gender-role attitudes is age, followed closely by
gender, education, year of data collection, and to a lesser extent, employment status, race, marital
status, and finally, region. In brief, respondents with the most egalitarian attitudes are younger,
better-educated, Black women who are employed full-time, and live outside of the south.
The one surprising finding in Table 4 is the absence of any effect of the interaction
between region and year of data collection. In fact, we examined the effect of this interaction on
all of the separate subsamples (men, women, Blacks, and whites) and also found no effect. For
this reason, we omitted the interaction term from all of the analyses that we discuss below.
Gender and Region. As discussed above, we believe that it is important to examine the
model separately by race and gender. We begin these analyses by comparing the findings for
women and men, controlling for race. As shown in Table 5, there is a great deal of consistency
between the findings for men and women. As hypothesized, region has a greater effect on
women than men, but the difference falls short of reaching statistical significance. As expected,
being employed full-time and being single are more strongly associated with egalitarian gender-
Gender, Race, and Region. Table 6 presents analyses separately for Blacks and whites by
gender. The pattern of findings reveals the importance of the interaction of gender and race in
explaining gender-role attitudes. The data show that some factors that appear to have no effect
when looking at the full sample, even when separated by gender, are consequential for certain
subgroups. Of particular interest is the differential effect of region. In the case of men, the most
14
interesting finding is that region was a factor in explaining white men’s gender-role attitudes, but
that there was no such effect for Black men—a finding counter to our hypothesis that Black
men’s attitudes would be affected more strongly by region than would white men’s attitudes.
Differences between the findings for Black and white women do not mirror those found
among men. We anticipated that the effect of region would be greater for Black women and we
proposed alternative hypotheses regarding whether southern or northern Black women would
have the most egalitarian gender-role attitudes. While region has a somewhat greater effect on
Black than white women’s attitudes, the effect is in the direction of southern women holding
substantially more traditional attitudes than those held by northern women for both Black and
white women.
It is interesting to note the effects of religiosity, labor force participation, and marital
status. For white men and both Black and white women, those with high religiosity held
substantially more traditional gender-role attitudes; however, religiosity had nearly no effect on
Black men’s attitudes. Further, consistent with the literature, labor force participation, which was
unimportant among men of either race and was associated with substantially more liberal gender-
The findings revealed by our analyses demonstrate the importance of examining the
effects of region separately by gender and race. Support for our hypotheses regarding the
differential effects of region by race and gender were mixed. We hypothesized that for both men
and women, the effects of region would be greatest on Blacks’ gender-role attitudes. However,
in the case of Black men, there was essentially no effect of region. In the case of women, the
15
effect provided support for Hypothesis 3b, that northern Blacks would hold more egalitarian
Our hypothesis regarding the interaction of region and time was also unsupported by the
data, both for the full sample and for each of the four subgroups, although year of survey was
important across all four subgroups and region helped to explain attitudes for three of the four
subgroups. The absence of effects may be explained by the fact that we controlled for variables
that greatly account for regionality, and that also converged by region across time, such as
educational attainment and women’s employment (cf. DiMaggio et al. 1996; Weakliem and
Biggert 1996).
Taken together, the findings we have presented regarding the differential effects of region
by race and gender are important because they demonstrate that regionality is consequential for
Blacks’ as well as whites’ attitudes, at least for women. We based one of our alternative
hypotheses regarding race and region on relative deprivation theory, which would suggest that
northern Blacks would hold more liberal attitudes because their sensitivity to social issues is
heightened by their inequality, relative to their expectations. However, the fact that there was no
support for this hypothesis among Black men calls into question whether relative deprivation
accounts for the fact that northern Black women held more egalitarian attitudes than did their
southern counterparts. Perhaps the finding of more traditional gender-role attitudes among Black
than white southern women suggests that women of both races receive pressure to conform to
southern norms of traditionalism. In other words, while the tradition of the southern belle may
have been restricted to white women in earlier decades, by the late 20th century, the greater
pressures toward traditionalism experienced by white southern women may now experienced by
16
Black southern women as well.
This set of findings further reinforces the argument that scholars have made regarding the
(DiMaggio et al 1996; Hurlbert 1989; Hurlbert and Bankston 2000; Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens
1997; Weakliem and Biggert 1999). Further, it has been argued that persistence of southern
cultural distinctiveness is primarily due to the continuing conservatism of southern white men
(cf. Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens 1997), a conclusion called into question by our findings of
effects for region among Black women, as well as white women and men.
We believe that the findings have important implications for future research. In particular,
we hope that the findings presented here will spur scholars to give greater attention to the
relationships among race, gender, and regionality, since our findings reveal that the effects of
region may be masked if gender and race are not taken into consideration.
17
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Table 1. Correlation Matrix, Means, and Standard Deviations of All Variables Included in Multivariate Analysis
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) Mean: Men Mean: Women
1. Gender role 1.00 -.326** -..100** .273** .001 -.117** -.160** .171** .207** -.049** .025 a 10.36 11.10
attitudes (2.43) (2.70)
2. Age of -.386** 1.00 .225** -.205** -.033* .124** .138** -.388** .007 .006 -.020 a 44.13 45.95
respondent (16.59) (17.78)
3. Marital status -.047** -.084** 1.00 .005 .002 .076** .133** .126** -.091** .007 -.088** a .59 .50
(.492) (.50)
4. Education .330** -.276** .066** 1.00 .012 -.110** -.025 .243** .142** -.093** -.123** a 12.99 12.66
(3.31) (2.92)
5. Catholic .012 -.036** .015 .022 1.00 -.670** .157** .015 -.001 -.193** -.125** a .255 .250
(.436) (.433)
6. Protestant -.098** .112** .003 -.117** -.765** 1.00 .339** -.030* -.070** .234** .138** a .567 .637
(.496) (.481)
7. Religiosity -.190** .191** .049** -.066** .074** .259** 1.00 -.014 -.068** .061** .062** a 2.97 3.19
(.957) (.880)
8. Employment .297** -.306** -.033** .264** -.004 -.032** -.083** 1.00 .024 .004 -.026* a .66 .416
(.474) (.493)
9. Years Since .216** .004 -.078** .180** -.010 -.046** -.059** .074** 1.00 .012 .012 a 13.19 13.32
1977 (6.12) (5.98)
10. Region -.062** .002 .016 -.105** -.198** .244** .085** .041** .022 1.00 .108** a .365 .375
(.481) (.484)
11. Race .054** -.078** -.164** -.091** -.181** .192** .064** .023* .042** .126** 1.00 a .11 .14
(.312) (.351)
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Table 2. Gender-Role Attitudes by Gender of Respondent, 1977-1998
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Table 3. Gender-Role Attitudes by Region, 1977-1998
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(n=12,985)
B Beta B Beta
(s.e.) (s.e.)
29
by Gender
Variables Men Women
B Beta B Beta
(s.e.) (s.e.)
30
by Gender and Race
Men Women
Married (=1) -.110 -.022 .278 .061 -.268** -.049 -.358* -.067
(.068) (.175) (.060) (.146)
Years Since 1977 .069** .173 .073** .196 .077** .168 .058** .142
(.005) (.014) (.005) (.011)
31