Sex Differences in Work-Family Ideology: Implications for the Opt-Out Debate

ResultsResults

“My mother’s always told me you can’t be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time. You always have to choose one over the other.” *

* Story, Louise. 2005. “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood.” New York Times, September 20.

Conclusions

• Women’s attitudes concerning work and family life are more liberal than those of men

• African American youth are more supportive of maternal employment than are Whites. However, the two groups do not differ in their support of an egalitarian division of labor

• Contrary to claims in the media, women whose mothers worked do not possess more traditional attitudes than those who grew up with stay-at-home moms. Rather, these women are more optimistic about women’s ability to juggle work and family, especially those whose mothers worked full-time

• Maternal employment liberalizes the attitudes of sons as well, and the liberalizing impact of maternal employment is greater for men than for women

• In contrast to media assertions, no evidence was found that youth with highly educated, employed mothers maintain more conservative work-family ideology

• It does not appear that women opt out because they adhere to conservative work-family ideology at the cusp of adulthood. Rather, their views may change once they are in the labor force and/or form families, due to structural constraints.

Future Directions

• Explore the impact of maternal work-family attitudes and employment history on the attitudes of their children, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and Children of the NLSY79. Differences in the process by gender and race/ethnicity will be identified

• Inspect change in the opt-out rate over time using data from the 1976-2005 Current Population Surveys (CPS)

• Use the 1976-2005 CPS data to determine which women are more likely to opt out, and whether this has changed across time

• Conduct in-person semi-structured interviews at two points in time to investigate how women think about opting out. Comparisons will be made between women who opt out and those that continually work

Jamie Lewis1 and Sharon Sassler2 1Carolina Population Center,

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University

Introduction

• A number of recent newspaper and magazine stories suggest that women are increasingly opting out of the labor force to remain at home with young children

• These stories suggest that women perceive paid employment as detrimental to children, to their ability to be good mothers, and to their marriages, and that young women today are planning their lives in accordance with these views

• Though a number of studies have explored changes in female labor force participation, there has been little evaluation of the hypothesis that young women have learned from their working mother’s experiences that you can’t ‘have it all,’ and have consequently embraced conventional gender ideology

• The role of men in the opt-out phenomenon has received little attention

• The aim of this research is to test whether young men and women react conservatively to maternal employment, as well as whether this reaction is heightened when employed mothers are highly educated

Methods

• Data come from the 2002 Monitoring the Future 12 th-Grade Survey

• The sample consists of Black and White high school seniors who responded to the questions on work-family ideology (N=1,574)

• The outcome variables consist of level of agreement with the following statements: 1) It is usually better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home, and the woman takes care of the home and family; 2) A preschool child is likely to suffer if the mother works; and 3) A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work. Variables were scaled so that higher scores indicate more liberal views

• Sex-differentiated models are analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression

Mean Level of Egalitarianism, by Sex

0 1 2 3 4 5

Working MotherGood with Child*

Child Does notSuffer if Mother

Works*

Egalitarian Divisionof Labor*

Mean

Women Men

Note: * p<0.001 Significant difference between women and men

Mean Level of Egalitarianism, by Race

0 1 2 3 4 5

Working MotherGood with Child*

Child Does notSuffer if Mother

Works*

Egalitarian Divisionof Labor

Mean

White Black

Note: * p<0.001 Significant difference between Black and White respondents

Impact of Maternal Employment on Level of Egalitarianism

Coe

ffic

ient

Egalitarian Division of Labor

******

++

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

Employed Sometimes Employed Most of theTime

Employed All of theTime

Notes: + p<0.10, * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001Reference group is Not EmployedModels include controls for household composition, number of siblings, whether sibling is present in household, maternal education, race, school ability, and educational plans

Women Men

Child Does Not Suffer if Mother Works

***

**

***

***

+

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

Employed Sometimes Employed Most of theTime

Employed All of theTime

Working Mother Good with Child

***

*

***

***

**

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

Employed Sometimes Employed Most of theTime

Employed All of theTime

Contact

Jamie Lewis

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Carolina Population Center

CB# 8120, University Square

123 West Franklin Street

Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524

jamielewis@unc.edu