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One-third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey husband, compared to Baby Boomers

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A new international survey of 23,000 individuals shows that 31 percent of Gen Z men concur that a wife must always be submissive to her husband and that one third (33 percent) believes that a husband must have the final say when it comes to making significant decisions.

Gen Z men (born 1997-2012) were twice as apt to hold traditional perspectives in decision-making in a marriage, with only 13% and 17% of Baby Boomers men concurring with those words respectively.

In comparison, much fewer female Gen Zers (18% and even fewer Baby Boomer women) said that a wife should be submissive to her husband all the time.

Although the survey conducted by 29 countries, including Great Britain, USA, Brazil, Australia and India, conducted on young men, they are more likely than older generations to have conservative views regarding gender roles.

The survey commissioned by Ipsos in the UK and the Global Institute of Women Leadership at King Business School, King College London, to celebrate the International Women Day 2026 shows that there are sharp disparities among various generations of men concerning the issue of gender roles:

24% don’t see woman to be independent, self-reliant

Nearly a quarter (24% of Gen Z men concur that a woman is not supposed to look too independent and self-reliant, compared to 12% of Baby Boomer men. The consensus among women was also significantly lower at 15% with Gen Z and 9% with Baby Boomers.

Generational differences in attitudes towards sexual norms are also very sharp: 21% of men of Gen Z believe that a real woman must never take the initiative to initiate sex, whereas only 7% of Baby Boomer men do. Only 12% of Gen Z women concurred but the women and men of the Baby Boomer generation were at par, 7% to this query.

Gen Z men report that they expect men to do too much to achieve equality (59%), as opposed to Baby Boomer men (45%), again, this was higher than the proportion of women who agreed with the same (41% and 30% respectively).

Although Gen Z men were the most likely to think that a woman should not seem too independent or self-reliant, this same group was also the one who most likely to think that women with successful career are more appealing to men, with 41% believing this statement versus 27% of the Baby Boomers of both sexes.

Older generations more liberal

The findings indicate that the older generations of men and the female Gen Z group have more liberal expectations of their own behaviour and choices as well compared to the Gen Z male. For example:

  • Gen Z men who answered the survey are more likely to think men should not say to their friends I love you 30% as opposed to 20% of Baby Boomer men and 21% of Gen Z women.
  • Gen Z men (43 percent) also consider it true that young men are supposed to attempt to be physically tough, even when they are not by nature big, than all respondents (32 percent) and Gen Z women (28 percent).
  • Gen Z men who are less confident that men who engage in caring for children are less masculine than those who do not (21 percent) are half as many as Baby Boomer men (8 percent) and even less than Gen Z women (14 per cent).

Not just generational differences, the averages of 29 countries indicate that there is also a gap between what the individuals themselves believe concerning gender roles in the house, and what society believes they should believe.

There were more uniform ideas among people, with only one out of six saying that women ought to do the majority of childcare (17%) or household work (other than childcare) (16%), and less than a quarter (24%) that men should do the majority of the work in earning.

Nevertheless, several of the respondents thought that perceptions of traditional gender roles are still common in their country:

  • More than one-third (35) of them reported that they think more in their country believe women are supposed to assume the primary responsibility of caring and other household chores.
  • Four out of 10 (40 percent) respondents responded that they believe most of the population in their country believes that men are supposed to be the breadwinners.
  • Only 31% of people around the world believe that people in their country believe that men should make the last word on important decisions in the household, and only 21 percent of themselves agree with that statement.

Although the respondents in Great Britain were less than average to have traditional views about the household duties, they still believed that the society had a traditional expectation.

As an illustration, personal attitudes varied in Great Britain with only 14% thinking women needed to take on the greatest responsibility with childcare but 43% thinking women were expected to do so, 15% said they personally thought men had a responsibility to make money and 38% said they thought society expected men to have a responsibility.

Great re-negotiation era on gender norms

In the UK, Ireland and Chief Executive of Ipsos, Kelly Beaver, said: “The survey conducted this year demonstrates that we are possibly entering into a great re-negotiation of how men and women occupy gender roles in the current society. Gen Z, especially, are the most contradictory in our data: they are the group most likely to agree that a successful career in women makes them more attractive with men and are also the group most likely to agree that a wife should never be disobedient to her husband and that women should never seem too self-sufficient or independent.”

This duality in views provides the critical dialogue of redefining the gender norms and the relationships between modernity and tradition are so intricate, and we need to explore more about cultural, social, and economic forces that shape these beliefs. “We should aim at enjoying inclusive discussions that will promote tolerance and acceptance of various gender roles and create a more equal and balanced society and a freer and more equal future to everyone.”

Director of the Global Institute of Women Leadership, King business school, Professor Heejung Chung stated: “It is alarming to observe that traditional gender norms are still present in the modern world, and it is even more unsettling that most people feel like they are under pressure due to the social expectations that are not necessarily what a majority of us believe.”

Julia Gillard, the Chair of the Global Institute of Women Leadership, King Business School, added: “It is disappointing to find out that the attitude to gender equality is not more favourable, especially among young men. Not only do many Gen Z men impose restrictive demands on women, but they are also confining themselves in restrictive gender standards.”

“There is more work that we need to do to bust the notion of the so-called zero-sum game where women are the exclusive beneficiaries of the world being gender-equal. We must make everyone board the gender equality train, where people should clearly see the reasons why it is useful to the entire society.” This report offers the much-needed information on the global trends in regard to gender equality.

“As a society we need to resist the pressure to go backwards and accelerate the pace of change. Good research is critical to reasoned debate and forward progress, ” she says.

Read More:

Emotional AI and gen Z: The attitude towards new technology and its concerns

‘By women, for women’: 15 years of the UN agency championing gender equality

Stressful life make people focus more on their romantic partner’s negative behavior

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Stressful life circumstances can affect how married couples interact, but can they affect how partners see each other? A person experiencing stress is more likely to notice their spouse’s negative behavior than positive, according to a new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Prior research has focused on how stress influences behavior, but this study suggests that stress could affect what actions partners notice in the first place. The negative actions being monitored included a spouse breaking a promise, showing anger or impatience, or criticizing their partner.

“We found that individuals who reported experiencing more stressful life events outside of their relationship, such as problems at work, were especially likely to notice if their partner behaved in an inconsiderate manner,” says lead author Dr. Lisa Neff, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers asked 79 heterosexual newlywed couples to complete a short survey each night for 10 days, in which they documented both their own and their partner’s behavior. Before beginning this portion of the study, participants completed a questionnaire in which they shared details on stressful events in their life.

Stress

Studying newlyweds drives home the significance of the results, Dr. Neff notes, because couples are especially likely to focus on each other’s positive behavior and overlook negative actions during the “honeymoon” period.

“For many people, the past few years have been difficult – and the stress of the pandemic continues to linger,” says Dr. Neff. “If stress focuses individuals’ attention toward their partner’s more inconsiderate behaviors, this is likely to take a toll on the relationship.”

Researchers noted a single stressful day was not enough to make someone zero in on their partner’s negative behavior, but a longer accumulation of stressful life circumstances could cause this shift in focus. The findings also suggest that those under stress were not any less likely to notice their partner’s positive behavior, but they were more likely to notice inconsiderate actions.

While it’s possible that being aware of the effects of stress could allow couples to correct their behavior and limit harm to the relationship, Dr. Neff notes that this will remain speculation until it is studied further. She also says that future research would do well to expand this study beyond the honeymoon phase.

“One direction would be to examine if the harmful effects of stress might be even stronger among couples no longer in the newlywed phase of their relationships,” says Dr. Neff, “but the fact that we found these effects in a sample of newlyweds speaks to how impactful the effects of stress can be.”

What does it mean for the husband when his wife keeps her own surname?

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When a woman chooses not to take her husband’s surname after marriage, people perceive her husband as being higher in traits related to femininity and lower in traits related to masculinity. He is also perceived as having less power in the relationship. This is according to a study led by Rachael Robnett of the University of Nevada in the US. The research is published in Springer’s journal Sex Roles and is the first to examine whether people’s perceptions of a man’s personality vary depending on whether his wife adopts his surname or retains her own.

The tradition of women adopting their husbands’ surname after marriage is arguably one of the most widespread gender-role norms in Western cultures. In recent decades, it has gained attention from feminist scholars who want to understand why the surname tradition remains widely endorsed despite marked changes in the role that women play in society and in the labor force.

According to previous studies, women who violate the marital surname tradition are viewed differently from others. They are described in terms of instrumental traits that in a gendered society are typically assigned to men. These include having a higher status, yielding more power, being more self-focused, ambitious and assertive. These traits contrast with the expressive characteristics that are typically assigned to women, such as being more nurturing, kind and having less influence and power.

To date, researchers have not yet examined how a woman’s marital surname choice influences how others perceive her husband. To this end, Robnett and her colleagues carried out three studies in the US and UK. The first two studies showed that husbands whose wives keep their own surnames are often described through terms that are counter to the gender-typical personality traits and power framework used for men. They are described in more expressive than instrumental terms, and are seen to hold less power in a marriage.

“A woman’s marital surname choice therefore has implications for perceptions of her husband’s instrumentality, expressivity, and the distribution of power in the relationship,” says Robnett. “Our findings indicate that people extrapolate from marital surname choices to make more general inferences about a couple’s gender-typed personality traits.”

Results from the third study conducted by Robnett’s team suggest that people are not unanimous in how they think about such cases. People who firmly hold on to traditional gender roles and can be described as hostile sexists react particularly strongly to a man whose wife retains her surname because they see him as being disempowered.

“We know from prior research that people high in hostile sexism respond negatively to women who violate traditional gender roles,” says Robnett. “Our findings show that they also apply stereotypes to nontraditional women’s husbands.”

“This study joins several others in alluding to a link between traditions in heterosexual romantic relationships and power structures favoring men,” says Robnett. “The marital surname tradition is more than just a tradition. It reflects subtle gender-role norms and ideologies that often remain unquestioned despite privileging men.”