Chapter 5 - The social origins of Dutch mothers’ gender values and ideal family life
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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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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;