The Two Faces of Familism: A Cross-Cultural Research in India and Italy

In the present research, we developed a familism scale comprised of two dimensions, namely support obligations and traditional norms, in order to examine cross-cultural and gender differences in a group of Indian (n = 107) and of Italian students (n = 106). We hypothesised and found that support obligations were judged more important than traditional norms in both groups. Moreover, the Indian participants considered both dimensions of familism more important than did their Italian counterparts. Indian women gave greater importance to traditional norms than Indian men did, while Italian women gave greater importance to support obligations than Italian men did. The social implications of cross-cultural and gender differences in familism are discussed.