Patterns of Gender Development Across Intersections of Age, Gender, and Ethnicity-Race

Two components of gender identity are gender similarity, how one’s self-concept relates to the major gender collectives (i.e., female, male), and felt pressure to conform to gender norms. The development of these components across ages and contexts has been understudied. The focus of this study was to examine variations in gender similarity and felt pressure across multiple intersecting contexts: developmental stage, gender, and ethnic-racial group. Six data sets were harmonized and means were compared across 2628 participants (51% girls, 49% boys) from four different developmental cohorts (childhood n = 678, early adolescence n = 1322, adolescence n = 415, and young adulthood n = 213) from diverse ethnic-racial backgrounds (45% White, 23% Latinx/Hispanic, 11% Black/African-American, 7% Asian-American, 5% American Indian, and 5% Multiracial). Results revealed nuanced patterns: Gender intensification was supported in early adolescence, primarily for boys. Young adult men reported lower levels of pressure and gender typicality than younger boys, but young adult women’s levels were generally not different than younger girls. Surprisingly, young adult women’s levels of own-gender similarity and pressure from parents were higher than adolescent girls. Expectations of gender differences in gender typicality and felt pressure were supported for all ages except young adults, with higher levels for boys. Finally, there were more similarities than differences across ethnic-racial groups, though when there were differences, minoritized participants reported heightened gender typicality and pressure (largely accounted for by higher scores for Black and Latinx participants and lower scores for White and Multiracial participants). These results add to what is understood about contextually dependent gender development.