All Hands on Deck? How Gendered Attitudes Toward Parents’ Work-Family Priorities Depend on Children’s Ages

• In Event: 50609 - Gender Inequality in Work and Family Life

Abstract

Cultural lag theory seeks to explain the persistence of gender inequality by suggest that despite gender-egalitarian shifts in Americans’ personal, or “first-order” attitudes, their perceptions of majority opinion, or “third-order beliefs” continue to favor more gender-traditional work-family behavior. However, little gender scholarship compares both first- and third-order beliefs. Moreover, past studies have not considered how ideological support for gendered work-family arrangements might depend on ages of the family’s children. To extend knowledge about gender attitudes, cultural lag, and gender inequality, this study uses a novel experimental design to examine both first-order and third-order beliefs about how employed heterosexual parents with children across the childhood age spectrum should navigate work-family trade-offs. Findings suggest that cultural lag theory is most applicable to beliefs toward fathers of young children, as people personally prefer fathers to prioritize parent-child time when children are young, but think most people prefer fathers to prioritize financial providing regardless of children’s ages. Beliefs about mothers’ work-family priorities are especially contingent on children’s ages, suggesting that common gender ideology measures may obscure considerable variation based on children’s ages. This study contributes to scholarship on gender and social change by theorizing gender ideology as context-dependent and demonstrating that third-order beliefs about fathers continue to support a “provider-fathering” model that people may personally reject when children are young. I argue that the perception of continued cultural support for gender-traditional fathering ideals may play a key role in slowing progress toward gender equality in work and family.  

Author

• Reilly Kincaid, University of Arkansas