Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers
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Relatively few empirical studies in Western societies have shown how adults’
attitudes are influenced by processes of parental gender socialization, a few cases
of which I will exemplify below. Children of parents with ‘modern’ values appear
to have a more egalitarian perspective on work and family roles compared to
children of parents with more traditional values (Barret and White, 2002;
Cunningham, 2001; Moen et al., 1997; Trent and South, 1992; Van Wel and
Knijn 2006). On the basis of a large cross-sectional survey of Dutch, Turkish,
Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean adolescents
living in The Netherlands, De
Valk (2008) described, how various characteristics of the parents coincided with
adolescents’ attitudes. Having religious parents correlates with more traditional
preferences among girls and boys. Adolescents tend to have a more egalitarian
gender attitude in cases where they had a working mother and grew up in a non-
standard family arrangement (single parent or foster families) (De Valk 2008,
also Marks and Houston 2002b, p.333). Weinshenker (2006) showed, with a
study among 194 middle class North American families, that the expectations of
female adolescents’ (aged 12 to 18) about their future
employment as a mother
were associated with their own mothers’ employment histories and their support
for gender egalitarianism.
In addition, several studies have demonstrated that
having a working mother has a significant and stimulating effect on the
employment behaviour of their daughters (Cloïn, 2010; Sanders, 1997; Van
Putten et al., 2008).
The opposite holds true as well. Gove and Herb (1974) argue that pressure on
girls to assume feminine gender roles limits their aspirations, behaviour and
conceptions of the selves to those matching with their future role of wives and
mothers (in
Barret and White, 2002, p.453). De Valk (2008), too, finds that
having religious parents is related to more traditional preferences of girls and
boys. “
The greater religiousness of adult women is consistent with their
socialization and internalization of the ‘proper’ female role” (Thompson, 1991,
p.382)
. However, it is important to realise that not every religion might have the
same effect (Hayes, McAllistar and Studlar, 2000).
Based on socialization and social learning theory, as well as on relevant
empirical findings, I hypothesise that the influence of parental upbringing during
childhood (including parental behaviour as well as the
transmission of values and
attitudes), continues to influence Dutch mothers’ current gender values and
gender and work attitudes. Therefore, the third hypothesis of this study is:
Hypothesis 3:
A mother’s gender values and gender and work attitudes are influenced by
parental socialization during childhood.
The focus of this study is to investigate the possible patterns within primary
socialization among contemporary Dutch mothers that correspond with their
diverse labour market behaviour, and subsequently the character – translated in
Chapter 2 - Theoretical framework and hypotheses
69
different mental and verbal codes – of these early socialization marks. Phrased
differently, which distinguishing remnants within early
childhood socialization
still have impact on the current values and attitudes of Dutch mothers, and can
explain their heterogeneous labour market behaviour?
2.9 Secondary
socialization
As a person lives, they must learn to function in any new group or organisation
(sub-world) that they enter. The individual learns not only new practices, but also
new values and norms, new vocabulary, and new ways of interacting with others.
Secondary socialization is often referred to as the acquisition of role-specific
knowledge, or the internalization of institutional or institution-based sub-worlds.
These sub-worlds are also more or less consistent realities
with normative,
affective and cognitive elements, and have their own rituals or material symbols
(Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.158). When the person is making a major
commitment, such as entering a new relationship, a new religion or occupation,
they are also making a significant change in life that can be described as
developing a new self. Yet, the formal processes of secondary socialization
persist with an essential problem: it is always determined by
an earlier process of
primary socialization. It must deal with an already formed self and an already
internalized world (Handel, 2006; Wallace and Wolf, 2006, p.290). “
This
presents a problem because the already internalized reality has a tendency to
persist” (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.160).
Whatever the new contents are, to
be internalized they must somehow be superimposed upon an already present
reality. There are two specific topics that distinguish secondary socialization from
primary socialization, which can be termed as emotional
identification and the
problem of consistency.
No need for emotional identification
While primary socialization cannot take place without an emotionally charged
identification of the child with his significant others, most secondary socialization
can occur with a minimum of identification that is necessary for any
communication between human beings. Put differently, the individual may
internalize different realities without identifying with them. Moreover the reality
of the sub-worlds can be ‘used’ for
specific purposes, insofar as it is needed to
perform certain roles. The individual keeps a subjective distance from the sub-
worlds, and is able to put them on deliberately and purposely, and to allow
figurations that are rational and emotionally controlled (Berger and Luckmann,
1967, p.163). Or as Berger and Luckmann (1967) put it
, “the child lives willy-
nilly in the world as defined by it parents, but he can decide at any moment to
leave an unpleasant world of his secondary socialization agents” (p.162). This
artificial aspect of secondary socialization makes the internalization of discrepant
worlds in secondary socialization an entirely different arrangement. Secondary