ABSTRACT
This chapter determines the extent of traditionalist orientations towards gender roles within the household and women's employment in the attitudes of respondents belonging to the seven Western Balkan societies: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia. The analysis of attitudes towards gender roles and women's employment will be based upon Sylvia Walby's concepts of private and public patriarchy and Inglehart's revised theory of modernization and cultural change. Patriarchy is often defined as a system of social practices and structures, in which men dominate, exploit and oppress women. The internal structure of patriarchy is not necessarily homologous to other systems of social relations such as capitalism and socialism. In Croatia, which is a predominantly Catholic country, the extent of patriarchal value orientations is the lowest, in predominantly Orthodox countries the percentages of traditionally oriented respondents are higher, while the most traditionally oriented are the respondents belonging to the Islamic cultural tradition.
