Microsoft Word Socialized Choices 31-12 pod docx

Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
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simultaneously pursues a full-time job, studies for a post-graduate degree on a 
part-time basis, and gives birth to two children in a quick succession. Another 
young woman regards the three activities as sufficiently demanding but mutually 
exclusive. A situation that might present as an impossible stumbling block to one 
person may be perceived as a stepping stone by someone else” (Hakim, 2000, 
p.170). 
Hakim categorised these personal life style preferences
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 of women in three 
ideal-typical preferences which are apparent in most Western societies: home 
centred preferences (consisting of about 20% of women), according to which 
children and family are a woman’s main concern in life; work-centred 
preferences (about 20% of women), under which a woman’s priority in life is 
employment and/or self-development; and adaptive preferences (about 60% of 
women), such as when a woman has no explicit priority but tries to reconcile both 
work and family. Drawing comparisons from two large, nationally representative 
interview surveys from Great-Britain and Spain, Hakim empirically demonstrated 
that just three questions on work centrality, lifestyle priorities and life plans can 
be sufficient to identify the three lifestyle preference groups among women 
(Hakim, 2003c, p.233).  
Several follow-up studies have demonstrated the validity of preference theory 
(Beets et al., 1997; Cloïn, 2010; Cunningham et al., 2005; Hakim, 2003c; 
Hoffnung, 2004; Hooghiemstra, 2000; Marks and Houston, 2002; Portegijs et al., 
2008b; Risman et al., 1999; Van Wel and Knijn, 2007). For example, in a 
longitudinal study among Dutch young adults (18 to 26 years old) between 1987 
and 1991, Beets et al. (1997) showed that besides the present characteristics of 
their jobs and educational achievements, young adults’ earlier gender- role 
orientations are an important predictor for their later intentions to reconcile 
family and work roles. In a longitudinal study of American young adults spanning 
the period from 1962 to 1993, Cunningham et al. (2005) showed that young adult 
women who are egalitarian-minded are more likely to engage in full-time 
employment eight years later than women who had traditional views when they 
were young. On the basis of her longitudinal study among 178 women of five 
New England (US) colleges and universities, Hoffnung (2004) also described that 
senior students’ plans regarding their future work and family life were 
significantly associated with their educational achievement and occupational 
                                                           
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  Hakim operationalised lifestyle preferences with three questions: 1) ideal family roles (Which 
family life is closest to your ideal family life?: egalitarian, compromise or role segregation), 2) 
would you still work even without economic necessity (such as in the case when a person wins the 
lottery) (egalitarians: yes): 3) perception of primary earner identity (egalitarians: yes).  Lifestyle 
preferences can as such be identified with just three fixed-choice questions (2003c). Hakim 
constructs a summary measure of work orientations by combining the questions on work 
commitment and primary earner identity into an index of work centrality. Work centrality and 
ideal family models constitute two separate indicators of sex-role ideology which, in combination, 
define preferences. Hakim reclassified women who claim to prefer the egalitarian family but who 
were not work-centred as adaptive.  

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Chapter 2 - Theoretical framework and hypotheses 
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status seven years later. Notably, within all of these studies, the feasible 
intermediating role of work preferences (intentions) between attitudes and 
behaviour is not included; attitudes are assumed to affect behaviour directly. 
Nonetheless, some of these studies do make distinctions between the more 
general values and personal attitudes, and demonstrate that personal attitudes or 
preferences are often closer to behaviour than to general values.  
For example, Hakim emphasised that it was not patriarchal values (which are 
seen as being similar to behavioural beliefs or, as used this study, general gender 
values), but rather personal lifestyle preferences (attitudes to behaviour) that have 
close correspondence with behaviour.
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 Also Becker et al. (1983) claimed that 
diverse research in this field demonstrated that there is only a slight direct 
relationship between values and behaviour. Hakim compared the difference 
between personal preferences and general values with the dissimilarity between 
personal goals and public beliefs, between choice and approval, and between 
what is personally desired and desirable in general (Hakim, 2003b, p.341, 2003c, 
p.70). She argued that general values are usually vague and malleable, and mostly 
refer to what people consider to be appropriate for other people regarding the 
division of tasks between the spouses, while personal lifestyle preferences refer 
to a person’s ideal with respect to the division of labour in their own family life 
(Hakim 2000, 2003a and 2003b). General gender values can be inconsistent with 
peoples’ own personal plans (Hakim, 2003a, 2003 b; Smithson and Stoke, 2005). 
People do not always act according their general values (WRR, 2003, p.44). For 
example, a woman may believe that mothers in general should be free to have 
abortions, and yet she might be unwilling to have an abortion herself (Hakim, 
2003b). Alternatively, one might be judgemental about unemployed people in 
general, but not about an unemployed friend or family member. These 
inconsistencies can be explained by the fact that what people think is appropriate 
for others may not be the best choice for themselves or for their close ties in view 
of their particular circumstances (Marks and Houston, 2002b, p.322). 
Inconsistency can also be understood in the light of political correctness bias
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, 
which was revealed, for example, by an empirical study in Spain (Hakim, 2003c; 
also Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005, p.176). An alternative explanation is that people 
are either not aware of their true values or they do they not think much about 
them, and as a result their answers are not particularly reliable or consistent 
(Bem, 1965). Overall however, the authors agree there is a certain degree of 
                                                           
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  Examples of how to investigate patriarchal values may be whether a person agrees or disagrees 
with propositions such as 'a child that is not yet attending school is likely to suffer the 
consequences if his or her mother has a job' and 'the father should earn money, while the mother 
takes care of the household and the family'. Patriarchal values are often measured with a Likert 
scale. 
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  The social desirability bias is a tendency for people to give a favourable picture of themselves; to 
enhance positive characteristics and minimise characteristics that would allow themselves to be 
perceived in negative terms by society. People tend to conform to the believed social standards 
(Hakim, 2003c, p.63)  

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