The world has developed and together with it, the way men and women think about their position within the society. Many women have demonstrated that they are equal to men when it comes to a specific task, which was a male thing in the “older” days. For this particular reason, many men have changed their mind about the women’s place in their world. But there are many others still thinking a woman’s place is at home cooking and raising the kids.

According to a US study published in the September issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, these men appear to earn more money than their more “modern-thinking” men.

The study was carried on a large scale, with 12,686 men and women interviewed in 1979 when they were aged between 14 and 22, and three times in the following two decades, the last time in 2005.

According to the study, the results seem to be more than an economic phenomenon. “Psychology has an important role to play, too. Our country’s policies have been leaning toward gender equality for decades now. But, according to our study, traditional gender role views continue to work against this goal,” researcher Timothy Judge of the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Administration said. Colleague Beth Livingston helped Judge in the study.

The study found that men with traditional views on the gender role in the society made an average of about $8,500 more annually compared to their more “modern-thinking” counterparts. The same situation occurred in the case of couples who both tended to view the ideal place for a woman as the home. They had a significant earning advantage over those who disagreed.

“More traditional people may be seeking to preserve the historical separation of work and domestic roles. Our results prove that is, in fact, the case. This is happening even in today's work force where men and women are supposedly equal as far as participation,” Judge said.

On the other hand, women who held more traditional views made an average of $1,500 less annually than the women with more than egalitarian views.

“When workers’ attitudes become more traditional, women’s earnings relative to men suffer greatly. When attitudes become more egalitarian, the pay gap nearly disappears,” Judge added.

Other findings of the study included: people whose parents both worked outside the home had less traditional views; married, religious people tended to have more traditional gender role views; younger people had less traditional views, but became more traditional over time.

Leaving the study findings aside, everybody is free to promote his/her own beliefs when it comes to family. The study’s authors supported the same idea.

“In general if your interest is to reduce the gender wage gap, then teaching your children and adhering to non-traditional attitudes toward gender roles is the way to go. If that's your goal, we have to work on promoting less traditional attitudes toward gender,” Livingston said.