Mars and Venus at Twilight: A Critical Investigation of Moralism, Age Effects, and Sex Differences

Daniel P. Aldrich, Purdue University
Rieko Kage, Tokyo University

Abstract

Analysts have long sought to understand whether women and men have different ethical orientations. Some researchers have argued that women and men consistently make fundamentally different ethical judgments, especially of corruption; others have found no such disparities. This study considered whether an individual’s age may also play a role in determining his or her moral judgment. A statistical investigation of interactive effects between gender and age in a nationally representative data set from Japan shows that this interaction functions better as a predictor of moralism than does education or gender alone. Older individuals of both sexes were found to have similar strict moral perceptions; as women and men age, their ethical judgments converge.