Women and Equality: Changing Patterns in American Culture

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Mar 18, Crystal rated it it was amazing. Shane Wallis rated it really liked it Oct 28, Laura added it Jul 09, Among Democrats and Republicans, more see an upside for women than for men as women have taken on a greater role in the workplace and men have assumed more responsibility for child care and housework, but Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to see benefits flowing from this societal shift. In addition, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say changing gender roles have made it easier for parents to raise children, for marriages to be successful and for families to earn enough money to live comfortably.

To be sure, men and women have different perspectives on how far the country has come in achieving gender equality, but these differences are relatively narrow when partisanship is considered. The nationally representative survey of 4, adults was conducted online Aug. Among Republicans, views are consistent across educational groups. The education gap among Democrats is even wider when it comes to whether men or women have easier lives these days. Again, Republicans are more consistent in their views, regardless of educational attainment.

Republican views of the benefits of changing gender roles are also divided along educational lines. The views of Millennial women differ sharply from those of Millennial men on the question of whether changing gender roles have made it easier for women to live more satisfying lives. Among older generations of adults, there is no similar gender gap.

And while a relatively small share of the public says the country has gone too far when it comes to gender equality, men who say they have been discriminated against because of their gender are particularly likely to hold this view: Among both women and men who say they have faced discrimination because of their gender, more cite situations related to hiring, pay or promotion than any other example of unfair treatment they have experienced. Among men who say they have faced gender discrimination, experiences related to the workplace are by far the most common. In many ways, the workplace has represented the front lines in the battle for gender equality in the U.

Over the past half century, the role of women in the workplace has been transformed as they have increased their labor force participation, seen their wages increase and made inroads into occupations that were previously dominated by men. Even so, women still lag behind in several key leadership realms. The share of women in the labor force grew throughout the second half of the 20th century, but has leveled off since then.

This overall trend is linked to labor force participation, another area where women have seen tremendous growth over the past several decades — narrowing the gap with their male counterparts. Wages have declined more sharply for young men those ages 25 to 34 than for other age groups. Higher earnings for women and lower earnings for men have resulted in a narrower gender wage gap. In , women earned, on average, 83 cents for every dollar earned by men. In women earned 64 cents for every dollar earned by men. Still, the gender wage gap persists , and the reasons for that are complex.

The gains women have made in wages have been driven in part by their increased presence in more lucrative occupations. Today, women are just as likely as men to be working in managerial occupations. In , men were twice as likely as women to have these types of jobs. In the past, women were more highly concentrated in lower-paying clerical or administrative occupations than they are today.

Even as women have made inroads in a wide range of leadership positions in recent decades, the gender gap remains quite wide in this area. Currently, there are six female governors and four females in executive branch Cabinet-level positions not including those serving acting positions. Click here for a more detailed look at data on women leaders. Americans across demographic and partisan groups agree that women should have equal rights with men.

These views differ by gender, education and, most of all, partisanship. Among Democrats, those with at least some college education are far more likely than those with no college experience to express dissatisfaction with the current state of gender equality. There are no significant education gaps among Republicans in views of the state of gender equality. The survey also finds that men and women express considerably different views about the current state of gender equality, but this gender gap narrows when partisanship is taken into account.

Men, however, are about evenly divided: To correct for skewness, square root transformations of the total duration of time minutes per 7 days were used. Parents completed a 5-item scale developed by Braiker and Kelly Total marital conflict scores were computed by summing the score for each of the 5 items. Youth completed an item measure adapted from Smetana Youth reported on the frequency of conflict within 11 domains of daily life e.

Responses ranged from 1 not at all to 6 several times a day. Total parent-child conflict scores were computed by summing the score for each of the 11 domains. A separate score was computed for each parent-child dyad i. Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from. Youth completed a 5-item scale developed by Stocker and McHale Total sibling conflict scores were computed by summing the score for each of the 5 items.

Means and standard deviations of all variables in the study are shown in Table 1 separately for mothers, fathers, and female and male first- and secondborn siblings. Adolescents also spent more time with their same-sex parents: Mothers' and fathers' scores were compared using pair-sample t -tests. Girls' and boys' scores were compared separately for first- and secondborn siblings using independent sample t -tests;. Scores for youth-reported gender role attitudes were standardized within cohort and birth order.

Hypothesis 1 posited that cluster analyses would identify family patterns characterized by congruence and incongruence among family members' gender role attitudes. Prior to conducting the cluster analyses, all reports of attitudes were standardized so that variables with larger variances would not dominate the cluster solution. We compared several solutions with two-, three-, four- and five-cluster structures derived from hierarchical clustering. Three patterns of families emerged were consistent with our expectation: Tukey follow-up tests for the univariate effects indicated that fathers in all groups were significantly different from each other in their gender role attitudes, with fathers in the divergent group reporting the most, and fathers in the egalitarian group reporting the least traditional attitudes.

The results also showed that mothers in the egalitarian group were significantly different from mothers in both the traditional and divergent groups, but mothers in the traditional and divergent groups did not differ. Finally, both first- and second-born children in the traditional group were significantly different from those in the egalitarian and divergent groups, but there were no differences between the latter two groups. Beginning with mother-father comparisons, these analyses revealed that parents differed from one another in both the traditional and the divergent groups such that fathers were less traditional than mothers in the traditional group, but more traditional than mothers in the divergent group.

There were no differences between siblings in any of the groups. Finally, except for a father-second-born difference in the traditional cluster, the divergent cluster was the only family type in which parent-child differences were significant. To identify the conditions under which different family patterns of gender role attitudes emerged, we conducted a series of mixed model ANOVAs and chi-squared analysis.

Hypothesis 2 a posited that parents in families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes would have lower SES. Tukey follow-up tests revealed that, consistent with our hypothesis, parents in both traditional and divergent families had significantly lower income than those in egalitarian families.

Consistent with our expectation, a Tukey follow-up test revealed that parents in both the traditional and divergent families had significantly lower levels of education than parents in egalitarian families. This SES index was used as a control variable in all remaining analyses. Hypothesis 2 b posited that parents in families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes would have a more traditional division of household labor. Tukey follow-up tests for the main effects for cluster showed that mothers in the divergent group spent more time on feminine household tasks than did mothers in the egalitarian group, and that fathers in the egalitarian group spent more time on feminine household tasks than fathers in both the traditional and divergent groups.

The overall parent effect indicated that mothers generally spent more time on feminine household tasks than did fathers. Hypothesis 2 c posited that fathers in families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes would spend more time with their sons. Analyses of parents' time with children revealed no univariate cluster effect for mothers' time spent with children. A follow-up test of the univariate main effect showed that fathers spent significantly more time with their older children in the divergent group as compared to the traditional group.

Taken together, this pattern suggests that fathers in the divergent group were relatively more involved with their children. Hypothesis 2 d posited that families characterized by more egalitarian gender role attitudes would be more likely to have girl-girl sibling dyads than boy-boy or mixed-sex sibling dyads.

In addition, the egalitarian group had somewhat more sister-sister than brother-brother pairs. In contrast to our hypothesis, however, mixed sex dyads sister-brother and brother-sister appeared to be distributed equally across the family types see Table 5. Hypothesis 3 posited that families characterized by incongruent gender role attitudes across family members would have higher levels of parent-child, marital, and sibling conflict compared to families characterized by congruent gender role attitudes across family members.

Inconsistent with our hypothesis, Tukey follow-up tests revealed higher levels of mother-child conflict in the traditional group compared to the egalitarian group and higher levels of father-child conflict in the traditional group compared to the other two family types.

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Although some researchers have begun to use person-oriented or pattern-analytic approaches to studying families e. The current study demonstrates the utility of a pattern analytic approach for studying family systems. Our analyses revealed that families varied in their patterns of parents' and children's gender role attitudes.

In the majority of families, there was congruence across four family members, in that all family members were either relatively more egalitarian or relatively more traditional as compared to individuals from other families. One group of families, however, showed an incongruent pattern in which both siblings displayed more egalitarian attitudes despite the more traditional views of their parents.

This pattern is consistent with family systems notions about within-family variability. The emergence of a divergent pattern also suggests that, whereas social learning processes explain children's gender role attitude development in some families, different mechanisms may be at work in other families.

Our analyses revealed that between- and within-family comparisons provide somewhat different pictures of family attitude congruence and divergence: In both the divergent and traditional groups, mothers and fathers also differed in their attitudes, such that fathers in the divergent group were more traditional than their wives, and mothers in the traditional group were more traditional than their husbands.

As we have suggested, most studies of gender attitudes focus on individuals or dyads. Our family-oriented approach reveals a more complex set of processes than has been found in prior work. There were no instances in which two siblings differed from each other in their gender role attitudes. Social learning mechanisms may be functioning in these families such that younger siblings model the gender role attitudes of their older siblings e. Future work exploring the relationships between siblings' gender role attitudes over time could provide further insight into the social learning processes that impact gender role development throughout adolescence.



In exploring the conditions underlying these family patterns, the results were consistent with earlier studies in showing that parental education and income distinguished families with more traditional attitudes from those with more egalitarian attitudes e. The divergent group was also characterized by lower education and income, as would be expected given parents' traditionality; however, in this family type, as noted, the attitudes of children were more egalitarian. Although the attitudes of parents in this group may have been grounded in socioeconomic factors, it appears that those of their children were not.

In addition to background characteristics, family patterns of gender role attitudes also differed in terms of parents' time use within the family. The divergent group exhibited a seemingly paradoxical pattern. On the one hand, parents in this group displayed a more traditional division of household labor; on the other hand, fathers appeared to be more involved with their children compared to fathers in other family types. Although the traditional division of household labor fits with the traditional gender attitudes of the parents in this group, the relatively high involvement in children on the part of fathers suggested less traditionality.

High paternal involvement in the divergent group is particularly noteworthy, given that girl-girl sibling dyads were over-represented in this group and that fathers in this group reported the most traditional attitudes. Notably, although mothers in this group reported more traditional attitudes compared to other mothers, they were less traditional than their husbands.

The findings illustrate the multidimensionality of gender: A person with traditional gender role attitudes does not necessarily exhibit gender-typed behaviors in all domains of life. The findings also provide some insight into the basis for the incongruence between parents' and children's attitudes in the divergent families. When fathers differ in their attitudes and behaviors, their messages to their children about gender may be diluted.

Despite the traditional attitudes of both parents, children in these families daughters in particular may notice the more egalitarian side of their fathers and react against their mother's traditional role in domestic labor. This highlights the complexity of socialization influences: Our results revealed that family patterns of gender role attitudes were linked to the sex constellation of the sibling dyad.

It was having not just one, but two girls, however, that increased families' chances of falling into the divergent group, and having not just one, but two boys that increased families' chances of falling into the traditional group. McHale and Crouter have previously demonstrated the important role that the sex of children plays in shaping family dynamics. Other research examining parents' differential treatment of siblings suggests that the sex constellation of siblings may influence the levels and types of parents' behaviors toward each of their children e.

Future researchers may gain new insights when moving beyond between- to within-family comparisons. Particularly important was the finding that having not one, but two children of a particular sex distinguished between the family clusters. In the case of the divergent group in which sister-sister pairs were more common, girls may have found it easier to express attitudes that were inconsistent with parents' when they had support from their sisters.

Similarly, the higher number of sister-sister pairs in the divergent group may explain mothers' less traditional attitudes relative to fathers, in the sense that having two daughters may encourage mothers to gravitate toward less traditional attitudes. In the traditional group, in contrast, the preponderance of boys in these families may have limited parents' exposure to and understanding of issues related to gender discrimination and equality that may arise when raising daughters.

Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence that the attitude incongruence of the divergent group had negative implications for parent-child relationships.



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Instead, there were higher levels of parent-child conflict in the traditional families. Importantly, this family type had an abundance of boy-boy pairs. Furthermore, the traditional gender role attitudes of parents may be coupled with more authoritarian parenting styles that have implications for conflict with sons and daughters. Interestingly, mothers in this group were more traditional than fathers, and it is possible that this relative incongruence between parents' attitudes fueled conflict among parents and children.

This investigation provides a contribution to understanding how families work as systems. Nonetheless, there remain some issues to be addressed in future research. First, this study was limited to a cross-sectional analysis. In order to fully understand the processes involved in the formation of family patterns of attitudes, longitudinal studies are vital. Although it may seem logical to conclude that the sex constellation of sibling dyads exerted an influence on family patterns of attitudes rather than the other way around, a longitudinal analysis exploring the development of gender role attitudes within the family could help to pinpoint the unique way in which parents and children impact the family system.

Just as children's gender role attitudes may arise through developmental processes, patterns of family attitudes may ebb and flow. Similarly, longitudinal analyses are necessary to better understand what experiences and conditions precede the divergence of attitudes among family members and whether these differences have implications over the long-run. A second limitation of our study pertains to the generalizability of the results. Although the participants reflected the demographic characteristics of the region in which they resided, the sample was fairly homogenous, both in terms of ethnicity and SES.

Gender role orientations are not only multidimensional within family systems, but also across different family contexts. As such, these patterns of gender role attitudes may not be universal. The results of the cluster analysis should be replicated in other samples before drawing conclusions about the nature and correlates of family gender role attitude patterns. Finally, the measure of parent-child conflict may be limited in its validity. Although the 11 domains assessed in the parent-child conflict scale certainly represent domains of family life that may trigger conflict, it is possible that these domains more closely represent household disciplinary or regulatory practices.

Future studies could validate the findings in this study related to conflict by using alternative measures of parent-child conflict. In conclusion, our findings highlight the importance of measuring the gender role attitudes of multiple family members. By examining family patterns of gender role attitudes rather than just focusing on individuals or single dyads, a deeper understanding of the processes involved in gender role attitude development, among both parents and children, can be gained.

As this study demonstrates, gender role attitudes are connected to aspects of family life, including relationship quality and division of labor, and are shaped by the family context in which they are embedded. The authors are grateful to their undergraduate and graduate student, staff, and faculty collaborators, as well as the dedicated families who participated in this project.

Crouter and Susan M. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Author manuscript; available in PMC Feb 2. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. The Pennsylvania State University. See other articles in PMC that cite the published article. Abstract Study goals were to identify family patterns of gender role attitudes, to examine the conditions under which these patterns emerged, and to assess the implications of gender attitude patterns for family conflict.

Introduction Although the importance of gender role attitudes in family dynamics has been of interest to researchers for several decades e. Gender Roles Attitudes of Family Members: Congruence and Incongruence Our first goal was to identify family patterns of gender role attitudes. Congruence and Incongruence between Siblings We know much less about similarities and differences between siblings' gender role orientations than we do about those of marital and parent-child dyads.

Conditions Underlying Family Patterns of Gender Roles Attitudes Our second goal was to explore the conditions under which family patterns of gender role attitudes emerged. Family SES Evidence that socioeconomic factors may affect family gender role attitudes includes findings that women and men who have higher educational attainment and income express more egalitarian gender role orientations e. Parents' Time Spent on Gendered Household Tasks As noted, children learn about gender appropriate behaviors by observing the behaviors of their parents.

Sex Constellation of Sibling Dyads A family systems perspective emphasizes the bidirectional influences between parents and children, and previous research suggests that children may influence parents in some of the same ways that parents influence children. Gender Role Attitudes and Family Conflict Our third aim was to assess the implications of the family patterns of gender role attitudes for the quality of family relationships. Marital Conflict Marital quality has been found to be related to spousal similarity.

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Parent-Child Conflict Only few studies examined intergenerational incongruence in attitudes and its links to parent-child relationships. Sibling Conflict Our review of the literature found no studies linking sibling attitude similarity with sibling conflict, and from a theoretical perspective, predictions are inconsistent. Study Objectives and Hypotheses The present study was designed to address three research goals. We tested the following hypotheses. Cluster analyses will identify family patterns characterized by congruence and incongruence among family members' gender role attitudes.

In families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes, parents will have lower SES i. In families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes, parents will have a more traditional division of household labor. In families characterized by more traditional gender role attitudes, fathers will spend more time with sons. The group of families with more egalitarian gender role attitude patterns will include more families with girl-girl sibling dyads as compared to boy-boy or mixed-sex sibling dyads. Families characterized by incongruent gender role attitudes across family members will have higher levels of marital, parent-child, and sibling conflict compared to families characterized by congruent gender role attitudes across family members.

Method Participants Participants were two-parent families from two cohorts of a longitudinal study of family relationships. Procedure We collected data through home and phone interviews. Measures Background characteristics We collected information on family members' ages and parents' education level and income during home interviews with parents. Parents' time spent on feminine household tasks We assessed parents' participation in feminine household tasks via telephone interviews with parents. Parents' time with children We assessed parent-child shared time via phone interviews with youth.