Is multilingualism linked to attitudes toward gender equality? Evidence from a big data survey

This study contributes to the emerging line of inquiry concerning psychological effects of multilingualism by systematically examining attitudes toward gender equality (AGE), an under-investigated psychological individual difference (ID). Based on data from the 2018 Chinese General Social Survey involving 12,787 participants, this exploratory study investigated the impact of multilingualism (operationalised as proficiency in foreign language(s), FL(s)) and another 11 sociobiographical factors (e.g. education) on AGE. A more refined version of hierarchical regression was adopted to generate a range of effect sizes (ΔR²) for each predictor. Among these variables, education emerged as a very important predictor, while multilingualism, resident type and Internet use emerged as important predictors. Additionally, national language (NL) proficiency and two other sociobiographical variables were identified as potentially important predictors. Notably, multilingualism was a stronger predictor of AGE than NL proficiency, underscoring the necessity of adopting a holistic perspective of language. As the first systematic attempt to investigate the link between multilingualism and AGE with a nationally representative sample, this multidisciplinary study (1) enriches multilingualism research by examining an under-investigated psychological ID, and (2) emphasises the importance of a holistic view of language by considering more than one language (e.g. both NL and FL) within any multilingual context.