Children learn to understand gender categories and roles typical for women and men from the earliest stages of their life. Toys, by which they are surrounded in everyday routine, may have a significant role in their knowledge of cultural norms and societal expectations, but also might have a great impact on children’s health in the context of psychosocial development. Parental attitudes can also be an important moderator of the choice of gender-stereotyped toys. The aim of the study was to investigate parents’ perspectives on toys’ appropriateness for children according to gender, and to analyze parents’ knowledge about the labeling of toys in shops. In total, 526 parents from big cities participated in the study; to assess parental knowledge and perspectives on toys’ categorization, The World of Toys questionnaire was used. The results indicated that most parents from big cities observe that toys are arranged according to the child’s age and sex and the toys’ functionality. Moreover, in parents’ opinion, the compliance with the role of a woman or man affects categorization the most. Furthermore, both parents tended to attribute toys to both sexes more often than they believe the stores do. To conclude, despite the still visible division of toys in shops, Polish parents from big cities are more liberal and egalitarian than shops are when it comes to the perception of toys’ appropriateness, allowing children to play with most toys regardless of their sex.

A growing body of literature examines how the roles that men and women take on (e.g. careers, childcare, etc.) differ between cultures. Less is known about whether the extent to which people think of themselves in terms of gender also varies cross-culturally. Gender identity centrality (GIC) reflects the extent to which individuals view their gender as a core aspect of themselves. Because stronger gender identification can shape the internalization of gender stereotypes, understanding cross-cultural GIC differences is important. The current, preregistered study (N = 19,220 participants, 49 countries) tested how theoretically derived country-level factors – gender equality, grammatical gender in languages, and collectivism – relate to country-level differences in GIC. Results showed that higher structural gender equality predicted lower GIC, while collectivism predicted higher GIC. Contrary to predictions, participants from countries with grammatically gendered languages (e.g., Polish) reported lower GIC than those speaking natural gender languages (e.g. English). When comparing predictors against each other, only collectivism and language, not gender equality, predicted GIC. Importantly, these country-level effects also varied depending on gender. Women consistently reported higher GIC than men. Exploratory analyses further suggested that cultural factors may differentially predict “gender importance” and “gender salience”. These findings highlight the role of sociocultural and linguistic environments in shaping gender’s personal importance.