This paper examines patterns of gender-role attitudes and the factors producing them based upon the supposition that social and economic changes are the main determinant of individual beliefs. This comparative study, using empirical data from the East Asian Social Survey of 1996-97, focuses on Taiwan and coastal China. Latent Class Analysis revealed generally similar patterns of gender-role attitudes between Taiwan and China. Residents of coastal China were found to be more likely than Taiwanese to hold traditional attitudes toward gender roles. Multinomial logistic regression analysis of the two data sets revealed, moreover, that education was consistently significant across the two societies but more pronounced in Taiwan. Diverse findings on gender, birth cohort, childbearing, and parental effects between Taiwan and China suggest that socio-economic development, to some degree, differentiate individual gender-role attitudes regardless of the shared cultural heritage.