This dissertation examines the trends in gender ideology in East and West Germany from the 1980s to the early 2020s and enhances the understanding of their multidimensionality and their predictors. This is achieved in particular by exploring gender ideology profiles and explicitly investigating beliefs about maternal employment while differentiating between the regions, and by extending the observation period of previous research to include the situation before reunification and of contemporary Germany. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the development of gender ideology, the congruence between macro-level factors (policy frameworks) and existing gender ideologies, as well as their association with micro-level predictors (socio-demographic characteristics, primary socialisation and individual life priorities) are analysed. Using ALLBUS data from 1982 and survey data from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1984, Study 1 examines the extent to which the employment of mothers with young children was supported by society in the former Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, and the role played by politically shaped life priorities for work and family. Study 2 analyses multidimensional gender ideologies in the former GDR and their congruence with the socialist gender equality agenda. The two other studies focus on the present. One is based on FReDA data from 2021 and compares gender ideology profiles in contemporary East Germany and West Germany, asking which socio-demographic characteristics increase the probability of holding a particular ideology. Study 4 uses AID:A data from 2018 to investigate what young people in Germany today consider to be the ideal form of maternal and paternal labour force participation and to what extent their ideologies are shaped by their socialisation experiences at home.