Culture Moderates the Relation Between Gender Inequality and Well-Being

Research on the relation of gender inequality and subjective well-being (SWB) has produced inconsistent results. We suggest that culture moderates this relation such that inequality has a greater adverse effect in liberal than in conservative societies. The present studies, using aggregate data from 86 countries (Study 1) and 145,975 individuals' data from 69 countries (Study 2), support this notion. Among liberal countries, inequality was negatively related to SWB for both men and women; there was some evidence that this relation was stronger for women. In conservative countries, the relation was not significant. Previously, the same liberal-conservative continuum moderated the relation between income inequality and SWB for groups with both high and low socioeconomic status (SES) but particularly for the low-SES group. The similarity in results across two different studies strongly supports the notion that the relation between inequality and SWB is contingent on where specific cultures are located on the liberal-conservative continuum.