Do Female Colleagues and Supervisors Influence Family Role Attitudes? A Three‐Level Test of Exposure Explanations Among Employed Men and Women in 27 European Countries
| Author | Roza Meuleman,Ellen Verbakel,Gerbert Kraaykamp |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12335 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
R M, G K, E V Radboud University
Do Female Colleagues and Supervisors Inuence
Family Role Attitudes? A Three-Level Test of
Exposure Explanations Among Employed Men and
Women in 27 European Countries
This study examines the relationship between
various aspects of female labor participation
and people’s family role attitudes. Following
exposure theory, we expect that individuals may
adopt more egalitarian family roles as they are
more often exposed to employed women because
it dispels negative ideas about women’s capa-
bilities and brings them into contact with non-
traditional networks. This study provides an
elaborate test by examining the role of expo-
sure to female colleagues and supervisors in
three contexts: workplaces, occupational sec-
tors, and countries. We found that the number
of female colleagues at work and in occupa-
tional sectors was positively related to egalitar-
ian family roles of employed men. Our study
further showed that this positive relationship
between exposure to female colleagues at work
and men’s egalitarian family roles was weaker
in female-dominated sectors. Remarkably, expo-
sure to national female labor participation was
not signicantly related to the family roles of
employed women.
Department of Sociology/ICS, Radboud University,P.O.
Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands,
(R.Meuleman@maw.ru.nl).
This article was edited by Dr. Jennifer Glass.
KeyWords: employment,gender roles,marital roles,women,
work.
During the past decades, the composition of
the labor market has changed dramatically,
foremost as a result of an increase in female
labor force participation. Not only do women
currently hold more than 40% of jobs world-
wide but they also run a third of all businesses
(International Labour Ofce, 2015). Moreover,
although women are still underrepresented in
top positions, the proportion of female managers
increased during the past 20 years in a major-
ity of countries (International Labour Ofce,
2015). The question central to this study is to
what extent exposure to today’s female labor
force participation is related to people’s support
for egalitarian family roles, which has been
rising as well (e.g., Brooks & Bolzendahl, 2004;
Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001). Attitudes
on the division of work and care between men
and women are not only relevant as an indicator
of inequality between men and women but may
also affect long-term concrete behaviors (Ajzen,
1991), especially with respect to the division of
work and to a lesser extent to family obligations
(e.g., Hochschild, 1989).
Previous studies have argued that contact
and interaction with employed women at the
workplace are positively related to egalitarian
family role attitudes, mainly through people’s
exposure to women’s capabilities to perform in
the labor market (next to managing a family)
and their capability to be self-reliant (Banaszak
& Plutzer, 1993; Bolzendahl & Myers, 2004;
Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (February 2017): 277–293 277
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12335
278 Journal of Marriage and Family
Davis & Robinson, 1991; Gerson, 1987; Klein,
1984; Kroska & Elman, 2009). In addition,
it is argued that employed women themselves
hold on average more egalitarian views than
nonemployed women and hence that exposure to
females at the workplace implies that employees
come into contact with relatively nontraditional
women at work (e.g., Cassidy & Warren, 1996;
Kraaykamp, 2012; Rhodebeck, 1996). Yet, the
relation between family role attitudes and expo-
sure to various forms of female labor participa-
tion, especially at the individual level (i.e., the
workplace), has been understudied in empirical
studies. This study advances on previous work
with three main contributions.
First, this research is of one the rst empirical
studies to directly test exposure mechanisms
underlying the relation between female col-
leagues at work and egalitarian family role
attitudes and will do so among both men and
women. Next to exposure to relatively success-
ful women (female supervisors), we examine
whether the mere amount of exposure to female
colleagues at the workplace (regardless of their
status) is related to egalitarian family roles.
In doing so, we contribute to the develop-
ment of exposure theory and provide a more
elaborate test.
Second, exposure to female colleagues and
supervisors may differ according to work
sector. For instance, in education and health
sectors, female employees are found most often
(Charles & Bradley, 2009; Eurostat, 2014), and
an overrepresentation of women in a sector may
imply that people will be exposed to women’s
abilities and egalitarian attitudes regarding
the division of work and care tasks more than
in male-dominated sectors. We here build on
previous research not only by testing the idea
of exposure at occupational sector level next
to the workplace level but also by theorizing to
what extent more contact with women at one’s
workplace might mean something different than
in one’s sector, for instance, because contact
with women in the workplace might be more
frequent, more personal, and more visible than
in one’s occupational sector. In addition, we
examine the exposure mechanism even further
by studying whether the relation between expo-
sure to female colleagues and supervisors at the
workplace and egalitarian family roles is weaker
or stronger in sectors with a higher percentage
of female colleagues (cross-level interaction).
Third, people’s norms and values are also
inuenced by societal norms and structures
(e.g., André, Gesthuizen, & Scheepers, 2013;
Banaszak & Plutzer, 1993; Geist, 2005; Glass,
Bengston, & Dunham, 1986; Sjöberg, 2004;
Voicu, Voicu, & Strapcova, 2009). According
to Banaszak and Plutzer (1993), previous liter-
ature suggests that “in nations where women’s
participation in the economy is high, support for
feminist goals is also high” (p. 147). Yet,empiri-
cal studies that investigate the effects of national
female labor force participation on people’sfam-
ily role attitudes are scarce. Moreover, studies
that do (e.g., Banaszak & Plutzer, 1993; Sjöberg,
2004) examine only a small number of countries,
and the results are contradictory (e.g., André
et al., 2013; Banaszak & Plutzer, 1993; Sjöberg,
2004). We contribute to this stream of literature
by examining to what extent egalitarian family
role attitudes are inuenced by the number of
women in the labor force and the number of
women in supervising or managerial positions in
27 countries. Until now, it was unclear whether
national labor market characteristics indeed are
related to egalitarian family role attitudes or
whether previously found country associations
in fact represent composition effects or inu-
ences of exposure on lower levels.We add to this
gap in literature by examining the national con-
text next to the individual workplace and occu-
pational sector. In addition, more frequent and
personal contact, such as at the workplace or in
sectors, might be differently related to egalitar-
ian family roles than exposure to national norms
regarding working women. So, in this contribu-
tion we also gain more insight into the relative
importance of different types of exposure by
focusing on working women in various contexts.
This study answers the following research
questions: To what extent are (a) the percent-
age of female colleagues and having a female
supervisor at the workplace, (b) the percentage
of female employees and supervisors in an
occupational sector, and (c) the percentage of
female employees and supervisors in a country
related to family role attitudes of employed men
and women? Also, to what extent is the relation
between the percentage of female colleagues at
the workplace and men’s and women’s family
role attitudes conditional on the percentage of
female employees in an occupational sector? To
test our expectations we use information from
the European Social Survey (ESS, http://www
.europeansocialsurvey.org), Round 5 (2010) on
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