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Hypothesis 3:
A mother endorses more egalitarian gender values and a more egalitarian
ideal family life if she perceived support from teachers at secondary school in
her professional choice.
Hypothesis 4:
A mother endorses more egalitarian gender values and a more egalitarian
ideal family life if she perceived the career support from significant others.
In the third path model, the perceived professional support of teachers and career
support from significant others are both included. The explained variance of the
model for gender values increased to about 18 per cent,
and for ideal family life
to about 65 per cent (table 18).
If a mother recalls the support of teachers in her choice of occupation, she
prefers a more egalitarian family life, as is expected in hypothesis 3, but
unexpectedly perceived previous professional support of her teacher does not
relate to her general values.
Previous career support from her partner is significantly associated with more
egalitarian general gender values. The same applies to the past presence of
stimulating people at work, such as colleagues and bosses. Within the path
model, the parental norms and values are no longer
significantly related to her
general gender values. Apparently, the parental influences on her general gender
values, except for the influence of the educational level of a respondent’s mother,
operate through the effect of secondary socialization agents.
Chapter 5 - The social origins of Dutch mothers’ gender values and ideal family life
151
Table 18. Model 3: Structural path analysis of dependent variables Ideal family life
and General gender values
Egalitarian Ideal family life
Egalitarian General gender
values
Beta
B (s.e.)
Beta
B (s.e.)
1.
General
gender values
.279
2.042***
(.159)
-
2.
Education .065
0.47**
(.016)
.220 .022***
(.003)
3.
Age .443
.052
*
(.022)
.951 .015***
(.005)
4.
Age square
-.411
.055*
(.025)
-.696 -.016**
(.005)
5.
Partner present
-.230
-.231***
(.050)
n.s.
6.
Religiousness n.s.
-.873
-.022***
(.004)
7.
Education mother
n.s.
.098
.013**
(.005)
8.
Message parents. works is a
mean to earn money
n.s. n.s.
9.
Message parents: caring for
others is important
-.101 -.101*
(.040)
n.s.
10. Work oriented mother
.105 .105**
(.041)
n.s.
11. Professional support by
teacher
.135 .135**
(.050)
n.s.
12. Career
support by partner
n.s.
.182
.025***
(.006)
13. Career support by
supervisors and colleagues
.157 .158***
(.044)
.304 .042***
(.007)
Intercept
.017
(.468)
-.041
(.087)
Squared Multiple corr. (R2) .653
.180
Degrees of freedom
14
Bollen-stine bootstrap
p =.001
1.
As independent and dependent variable general gender values, including control variables and
primary and secondary socialization factors as independent variables.
2.
Beta: standardized regression coefficient.
3.
B: unstandardized regression coefficient.
4.
S.E.: standard error.
5.
*p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001
6.
Bollen-stine bootstrap is a measure for the goodness-of-fit in case of non normal data for a path
model. Based on this outcome the model can be accepted.
7.
Source: Amos analysis of merged data from questionnaires: ‘Politics and Values’, ‘Work and
Schooling’, ‘Women and their social environment’, Liss Panel, Centerdata, University of
Tilburg, November 2010.
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152
Table 19. Standardized total effects belonging to model 3 (belonging to table 18) of
dependent variable Ideal family life
Egalitarian
Ideal family Life
1.
Gender values
.279
2.
Education .126
3.
Partner present
.230
4.
Age .708
5.
Age squared
-.655
6.
Religiousness -.046
7.
Respondent’s mothers’ educational level
.027
8.
Work oriented mother
.105
9.
Message parents, caring for others is important
-.101
10. Motivated by teacher
.135
11. Motivated by partner
.051
12. Motivated by supervisors and colleagues
.242
Source: Amos analysis of merged data from questionnaires: ‘Politics and Values’, ‘Work and
Schooling’, ‘Women and their social environment’, Liss Panel, Centerdata, University of Tilburg,
November 2010.
Earlier experiences of supervisors and/or colleagues who stimulated her with
respect to her work are also directly correlated with a more egalitarian ideal
family life, which makes the total effect of stimulating people at work substantial.
A stimulating partner is not directly related to a mother’s ideal family life, but
only indirectly via her general values. I do not find evidence for the influence of
stimulating friends. The effect of the control variables remains qualitatively the
same in this model for a mother’s ideal family life.
5.9 Conclusions
The large variation in the working pattern of Dutch mothers makes the
Netherlands an interesting case with which to study the
origins of individual
labour market behaviour. Previous research has shown that, next to micro-
economic factors, such as educational attainment and income, the variation in
gender attitudes is one of the causes of the diverse employment pattern (Beets et
al., 1997; Hakim, 2003a-c; Marks and Houston, 2002a; Portegijs et al., 2008b;
Risman et al., 1999). Continuing in this line of research, this study has traced the
origins of two kinds of gender attitudes, namely more
general gender values, (i.e.
the family life that a mother deems appropriate for other people), and personal
gender attitudes (i.e. a mother’s own ideal family life). This distinction is
important, because previous studies have shown that a mother’s personal ideal
family life is a better predictor of her labour market behaviour than her general
gender values (Hakim, 2003a-c; Marks and Houston, 2002a; Risman et al., 1999).
By conducting a structural path analysis on data from a survey among a
representative sample of 935 Dutch mothers, I tested to what extent differences in
socialization processes explain Dutch mothers’ general gender values and their