Microsoft Word Socialized Choices 31-12 pod docx

Chapter 5 - The social origins of Dutch mothers’ gender values and ideal family life 
141 
Table 11. What are the most important norms and values transmitted by your 
parents?
a 
 
% chosen 
1. A good education is important 
59 
2. You have to carry out your full potential. 
24 
3. Caring for others is important 
32 
4. (Paid) work is above all fun. 
5 
5, Through work you are valued by your social environment 
8 
6, You only should do what you really want. 
29 
7. Work is above all a way to receive income. 
15 
8. You have to work in order to be financially independent of others. 
33 
9. You should work in order to contribute to society. 
12 
10. When you don’t perform paid work, you are less worthwhile.  
0 
11, Making a good career in important 
6 
a
 The respondents could chose three items; N = 934 
Source: ‘Women and their social environment’, Liss Panel, Centerdata, University of Tilburg, 
November 2010. 
Work attitude of respondents’ mothers 
Secondly, I constructed two variables to measure the work attitude of the mother 
of each respondent at the time she (the respondent) was twelve years old, based 
on three questions. The first question is:  ‘Did your mother have a paid job when 
you were twelve years old?’. Two subsequent questions were asked about how 
her mother felt about having or not having a job. The possible answers to this 
question were: 1: She liked motherhood, but would have preferred to work as 
well; 2: She liked motherhood, and would not have preferred to work; 3: She 
found motherhood to be a burden, and would have preferred to work; 4: She 
found motherhood to be a burden, but would not have preferred to work either. 
The same questions were asked in cases when the respondents’ mother did work 
(i.e. She liked motherhood and her job; she liked motherhood and she would have 
preferred not to work, etc.).  
The three questions are combined in the following way. A dichotomous 
variable was constructed for the cases in which the respondent’s mother was not 
in paid work and felt good about not having a job, and for cases when she was in 
paid work, but did not feel good about her paid work, indicating that she was 
home-oriented. 44 per cent of the respondents recalled a home-oriented mother. 
Another dichotomous variable combined the cases in which the mother felt good 
about having paid work and the cases in which she regretted not having a job, 
indicating that she was work-oriented (28 per cent of the mothers). I did not 
merge these two variables into one dichotomous variable (home-oriented versus 
work-oriented), since then I would omit the respondents who did not know 
whether their mothers transmitted any of these values and the respondents with 
different memories. The respondents without clear recollection or with different 
memories of their own mothers’ attitudes are for the analysis relevant as well 
(Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005). 

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Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
142 
Two questions refer to the perceived support of secondary socialization 
agents.  
Professional support teacher.A first question addressed the influence of 
teachers. The respondents were asked whether they could remember any teacher 
at high school who had personally motivated or supported them in their choice of 
profession (answering categories: 1: no; 2: yes). Notably, only 12.8 per cent 
responded in the affirmative to this question. 
Career support significant others. A second question asked whether the 
respondent felt they had ever been supported or motivated to fulfil her full 
potential at work (1: no; 2: yes). Those who replied in the affirmative were then 
asked by whom. 42.4 per cent of the mothers confirmed that they had been 
supported in the past to fulfil their full potential at work: 16.1 per cent by their 
parents, 26.1 per cent by their partners, 23.7 per cent by their bosses and/or 
colleagues, 3.2 per cent by their brothers or sisters, and 7.1 per cent by their 
friends (5.3 per cent by others). Each of these answers is treated as a separate 
dichotomous variable in the analysis.  
Control variables 
Apart from the variables that measure primary and secondary socialization 
effects, I control for the effects of a number of background characteristics of the 
respondents.  
Education.  The higher the education attained by adolescents, the more they 
are exposed to ideas about equality and/or the establishment of career-oriented 
networks (Cunningham et al., 2005, p.887; Kroska and Elman, 2009, p.373). 
Therefore, it is expected that higher-educated mothers have more egalitarian 
gender attitudes in comparison to less educated mothers. The respondent’ highest 
education level completed is measured by six categories: 1: primary school; 2: 
lower secondary education (VMBO in Dutch); 3: higher secondary education 
(HAVO/VWO); 4: intermediate vocational education (MBO); 5: higher 
vocational education (HBO); 6: university (WO).  
Age .The effect of age (in years) is controlled as well, which may refer both to 
the life phase as well as to the generation (birth cohort) of the respondents. In a 
cross-sectional analysis it is not possible to distinguish between age and cohort 
effects. Yet, from a theoretical point of view, I included the variable age to 
control for the cohort effect. Various studies have shown that mothers’ role 
orientations have become more egalitarian over the years (Moen et al., 1997), but 
have recently reverted to being slightly more traditional in the Netherlands 
(Merens et al., 2011; Bucx, 2011). To allow for a non-linear relationship between 
age (or birth cohort) and values and ideals, age squared (divided by 100) is also 
included as an explanatory variable.   
Religiousness. Religiosity is expected to coincide with more traditional gender 
values and ideals, since most religions endorse traditional views on the role of 
women (Bolzendahl and Meyers, 2004; Cunningham, 2001; De Valk, 2008; 

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