Comparing the influence of gender stereotypes on well-being in Italy and Turkey during the COVID-19 lockdown

The hypothesis that gender stereotypes influence human behaviour and relational well-being is widely accepted in the literature. However, a comparison based on scientific assumptions is necessary to deeply understand the mechanisms activated by stereotypes in conditions of stress. The global health emergency from COVID-19 offers the opportunity to compare countries with different socio-cultural conditions, whose population has been subjected to the same stressful event during the lockdown phase.

The same questionnaire was disseminated in both Italy and Turkey during their respective lockdown phases. 140,000 interviews were collected in Italy and 10,000 in Turkey, a number big enough to obtain useful information for a comparative analysis in relation to behaviours, attitudes and well-being, also using the recursive regression models.

The results, based on scientific data, show that gender stereotypes are much more rooted in Turkey than in Italy, where the emancipation process of the population is more advanced, producing profound social changes and decreasing differences between men and women in terms of behaviour and reactions to difficult situations, such as the present one.

Stereotypes, which are hostile to any opposite evidence, affect individual behaviours and attitudes to the point that, within a specific context, they play a protective role against the uncertainty during a period of health emergency, inducing people to seek shelter in pre-established and widespread behavioural models. According to the data analysis, this has happened in Turkey more than in Italy. The results show that within a culture still strongly pervaded by these social conditioning, especially at the presence of low levels of education, the adherence to gender roles constitutes a "protective factor" of the individual well-being against external stress factors.