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Gen Z men are more likely than their Baby Boomer counterparts to believe wives should "obey" their husbands, a global study by Ipsos and King's College London suggests.
The study, which surveyed 23,000 people worldwide, shows that as many as 31% of men in their teens and twenties believed "a wife should always obey her husband", while 13% of older men aged 60 and over agreed with the same statement.
People from 29 countries took part, with the UK generally having more progressive views overall than the average of countries in the study.
In interviews with BBC News, the study's co-author says social media has played a "huge role" in changing attitudes worldwide, while a UK-based women's rights group says the statistics show we are "going in the wrong direction".
The cut-off points for generations is fiercely debated. According to the Ipsos report, the age brackets for the different generations are defined as:
- Generation Z: born between 1996 and 2012
- Millennials: born between 1980 and 1995
- Generation X: born between 1966 and 1979
- Baby Boomers: born between 1945 and 1965
Older women - those born between 1945 and 1965 - were the least likely to agree that wives should always obey their husbands (6%), but 18% of the younger Gen Z women agreed.
Trying to make sense of the gap between generations, the study's co-author Professor Heejung Chung told the BBC Gen Z men feel ignored by politicians and some of them resent not having the same opportunities as the older generations, such as struggling to get onto the housing ladder.
She argues that turning to more conservative views on gender is "their way of making sense of the world," and hold on to "potential power and the powers that they've seen their fathers and grandfathers have".
The researchers surveyed people in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the UK and the US.
The survey results vary drastically by country - in Sweden, for example, only 4% of respondents across all age groups agreed that a wife should always obey her husband, compared to 60% in Malaysia and 66% in Indonesia.
And 80% of respondents in Thailand agreed that we have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men, compared to 25% in Hungary.
The findings show that "in a lot of ways women's rights are being rolled back and public attitudes towards women's rights are unfortunately going in the wrong direction," according to Penny East, chief executive of UK-based women's rights organisation, the Fawcett Society.
In her view, a contributing factor to changing attitudes is the "shocking levels of misogyny, both online and offline," that boys are exposed to.
Chung, who is the director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London, echoes this, saying social media plays a "huge role" in changing attitudes.
That's because, Chung explains, influencers and politicians are "tapping into people's grievances" and "trying to recapture some of the feelings of being emasculated by the younger generation". They are doing this by suggesting that men need to reassert their dominance, as well as their roles as protectors and providers, she added.
People are "mimicking" what they've seen on social media "without really understanding what that actually means," she added.
In East's view, "it's almost surprising that boys can come out without these misogynistic attitudes given the diet that they're being fed on a daily basis in terms of what they're consuming online".
Although the number of younger women who believe wives should obey their husbands was lower than their male counterparts, the proportion was still higher than Boomer men.
Asked about why that might be, East pointed back to social media.
"Just in the way that young men are being taught that the way to happiness is wealth, cars, girls and physical strength, there are women being taught that the way to happiness is a really traditional idea of femininity.
"Some of that is 'trad wife', staying in the kitchen, aesthetically pleasing content. But there's a darker side to that, which is about subservience ... if the man is providing, does he therefore rule the home?," she asks rhetorically.
"It just feels like things are going in the wrong direction," East says, adding that "it's affecting both young men and young women".
Overall, Chung says the study showed that the majority of people did have "very progressive" attitudes towards gender.
The Ipsos and King's College research, compiled for International Women's Day, suggests that those in the UK hold more progressive views overall towards gender than the average of countries in the study - with 15% of UK respondents agreeing that "a husband should have the final word on important decisions made in his home", compared to 21% globally.
Other insights from the research show that globally 44% of people agree that "we have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men".
According to the United Nations' women's rights body, no country has reached full legal equality for women and girls.
Women globally hold 64% of the legal rights of men, "exposing them to discrimination, violence, and exclusion at every stage of their lives," UN Women said on Wednesday.
East from the Fawcett Society says there is a "growing phenomenon in public perception that women's equality has done what it needs to do".
However that attitude, she says, "ignores national statistics that show, unfortunately, that women are still being abused in their own homes, they're still being sexually harassed on the street, they're still being underpaid compared to men".
