Chapter 5 - The social origins of Dutch mothers’ gender values and ideal family life
153
ideal family life. The analyses show that primary and secondary socialization
processes do indeed matter.
Firstly, as expected (hypothesis 1), a mother’s ideal family life is significantly
related to her general gender values. Adding control variables, a higher education
corresponds with more egalitarian ideals and the presence of a partner with more
traditional standards. Secondly, the findings shed some light on which
remembered parental verbal and mental symbols are significantly associated with
a mother’s current gender values and personal ideals (hypothesis 2). The
instrumental parental message that “work is just a means to earning money”
renders more traditional general gender values. For such mothers,
parental
socialization regarding an intrinsic motivation to work was apparently absent. In
line with stratification theory, when a respondent’s mother had a relatively high
educational level, the respondent’s general gender values are more egalitarian
(Sanders, 1997). Furthermore, if a mother easily recalls the gender-specific life
message ‘caring for others is important’, her ideal family life tends to be more
traditional. Another salient finding is that the memory of a positively work-
orientated mother (even if she did not work) enhances egalitarian values and an
egalitarian personal ideal family life of her daughter.
Previous research has also
demonstrated that socialization processes for women operate in particular through
the transmission of attitudes and verbal persuasion by the mother (Moen et al.,
1997. p.291; Thornton, Alwin and Camburn 1983). In understanding mothers’
diverse values and ideals, which subsequently influence their labour market
behaviour, it is thus relevant to focus on their personal biographies and the way in
which parental values and attitudes were transmitted and continue to serve as
(invisible) guides for their behaviour. Moreover, the salient effect of her parents
on a mother’s current values and ideals suggest that a mother’s gender
values and
ideal family life remain to some extent stable over the course of her life, and is a
part of her that will not easily adapt to changing personal circumstances or
altering national institutions.
Our findings further indicate that earlier professional and career support,
whether by teachers (hypothesis 3), partners or people at work (hypothesis 4),
correspond with more egalitarian values and ideal family life. These results
imply that, although the origin of a mother’s gender values and attitudes may lie
in childhood socialization, they can be reinforced or weakened by the
professional and career support of significant
others later in life, or lack thereof
(also Bolzendahl and Meyers, 2004; Cunningham et al., 2005; Kan, 2007; Moen
et al., 1997).
The full path model could explain a considerable part of the variance of Dutch
mothers’ ideal family lives: a mother’s ideal family life is related to specific
parental messages, to previous professional support from teachers and people at
work (or lack of), a mother’s own general gender values (also socially
embedded), her
marital status, and her educational level. Mothers’ gender values
and personal ideals clearly do not exist independently from social structures, but
are formed within prior and diverse social bonds. The findings of this chapter
Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers
154
enhance the understanding of how values and ideals are shaped and socially
embedded, and add to the apprehension of why mothers react differently to social
institutions, such as statutory laws and normative standards.
Various qualifications of this study are in place. As mentioned above, the
findings are based on retrospective questions, cross-sectional data and correlation
coefficients. The conclusions regarding the impact
of primary socialization are
largely based on the respondents’ recollection of experiences from their youth.
However, memories are selective and people may rationalise their own
preferences and attitudes. Nevertheless, I believe that the answers of the
respondents are quite accurate, since only 13 per cent stated that they found the
questionnaire difficult, and 5 per cent thought the questions were not clear.
155
Chapter 6
Intermezzo: the full model
6.1 Introduction
In
this chapter, the two separate path analyses of chapters 4 and 5 are merged into
one encompassing path model. The full model does not yield any substantially
different results compared to the two separate models. Nonetheless, the bonus of
the full analysis is that it explains the work attitudes “I work in order to be
economically independent” and “I like to work” as dependent variables, which is
relevant because these work attitudes significantly relate to a mother’s work
preference.
The results are briefly summed up in this chapter. Firstly,
I will comment on
the direct effects of all dependent variables as shown in table 20. Subsequently,
the total effects (direct plus indirect) are displayed in table 21. The results will
then be considered and discussed.
6.2
Mothers’ labour participation
To examine which variables determine whether a mother has a paid job or not, we
included all relevant background variables and the variable work preference in a
logistic regression analysis. As is shown earlier, only work preference exerts a
significant effect on participation in paid work (table 20). Work preference
explains an important part of the variation in participation (0.46). In itself, this
may not seem very surprising, but the impact of this attitudinal variable is so
strong that the background
characteristics of the mother, such as age, educational
level, the number of children, the presence and the income of a partner do not
have any direct influence at all. This is despite the fact that these variables play a
crucial role in most sociological and economic theories on labour market
behaviour. To the extent that these factors do matter, their influence is fully
mediated by the work preference of the mother.