Separating Spheres? Diverging Trends in Youth's Gender Attitudes About Work and Family

• Date: 01 February 2018
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Author: Joanna R. Pepin,David A. Cotter
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12434

J R. P University of Maryland

D A. C Union College∗

Separating Spheres? Diverging Trends in Youth’s

Gender Attitudes About Work and Family

The authors investigated whether trends in

attitudes about gender were consistent with

the gender stall primarily occurring in the

family domain and examined potential mecha-

nisms associated with changing gender norms.

Using data from Monitoring the Future sur-

veys (1976–2015), the authors assessed three

components of trends in youth’s beliefs about

gender: the marketplace, the family, and moth-

ers’ employment. Findings showed continued

increases in egalitarianism from 1976 through

the mid-1990s across all three dimensions.

Thereafter, support for egalitarianism in the

public sphere plateaued at high levels, rising

support for mothers’ employment persisted at a

slower pace, and conventional ideology about

gender in families returned. The changing demo-

graphic composition of American high school

students did not account for the gender atti-

tude trends. Youth’s mothers’ employment and

increased education were related to increased

egalitarianism. Changes in population aver-

ages of mothers’ employment and educational

attainment were only weakly associated with

increases in egalitarian attitudes.

Department of Sociology, 3108 Parren Mitchell Building,

University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

(jpepin@umd.edu).

∗Department of Sociology, Union College, 807 Union

Street, Schenectady, NY 12308.

Key Words: adolescence, family dynamics, gender roles,

inequalities, work–family issues.

The rise of egalitarian essentialist ideology, a

blend of feminist principles of gender equity

with beliefs in innate gender dissimilarities, has

been a persuasive potential explanation for the

persistence of gender inequality and the stalled

gender revolution starting in the mid-1990s and

continuing into the early 21st century (Charles

& Grusky,2004; Cotter, Hermsen, & Vanneman,

2011; Wharton, 2015). This ideological frame

may be a central mechanism behind diverging

outcomes in the workplace and in families, with

substantial progress toward gender equality evi-

denced in the marketplace and gender inequal-

ity persisting within families (England, 2010).

Accordingly, women’s status in the workplace

has improved in multiple ways: The gender pay

gap has narrowed (Mandel & Semyonov, 2014),

the signicance of employer discrimination in

promotions has declined (Meyersson Milgrom &

Petersen, 2006), increasing numbers of mothers

remain employed (Bureau of Labor Statistics,

2017; Percheski, 2008), and so forth. In con-

trast, gender equality in the family has lagged

behind: Women still do most of the caretaking

and housework (Sayer,2016) and stereotypically

gendered patterns in romantic relationships per-

vade (Fetterolf & Eagly, 2011; Hamilton, Geist,

& Powell, 2011). Where there has been improve-

ment for women in the family realm, it results

more from increased time living apart (marriage

delay and divorce) and a reduction in women’s

total amount of time spent on housework rather

than from a convergence in gendered behavior

(England, 2006; Sayer, 2016).

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 7–24 7

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12434

8Journal of Marriage and Family

We argue that the focus on egalitarian essen-

tialism has overshadowed other important

strands of ideology that may inuence the

gender revolution, such as attitude differences

related to situational settings. Drawing on struc-

tural theory, Risman (2004, p. 435) aptly argues

that “when we conceptualize gender as a social

structure, we can begin to identify under what

conditions and how gender inequality is being

produced within each dimension.” Certainly, the

importance of gender’s multidimensionality and

measurement of it has been thoughtfully articu-

lated by many scholars. A notable limitation is

that trends in beliefs about gender have not been

systematically analyzed in ways that investigate

differences in beliefs about proper arrangements

for women and men in work and family realms

over time. If egalitarian essentialist ideology is

an increasingly formidable barrier to equality

in families, essentialist attitudes should be more

prevalent regarding dynamics in families com-

pared to public positions, and this belief gap

should have expanded over time. So far there

has been little empirical testing for evidence

that such a transformation in public beliefs has

occurred. Although previous studies show that

attitudes across domains are uneven, whether

this gap widens or narrows over time has not

been explored.

Rising public support for egalitarian attitudes

across demographic groups has largely been

attributed to cohort succession (Brewster &

Padavic, 2000; Brooks & Bolzendahl, 2004;

Mason & Lu, 1988; Thornton, 1989). Although

cohort studies have much to contribute to

understanding cultural norms, in this study we

focused on youth because of their importance

for predicting future trends, as progress or

retrenchment may appear falsely delayed in

surveys of multiple cohorts (Goldin, 1990). We

used data from Monitoring the Future (MTF;

www.monitoringthefuture.org), an annual sur-

vey of high school seniors’ attitudes, to analyze

the beliefs of young adults before they confront

resistant institutions and prior to life events

associated with changes in gender ideology

(Baxter, Buchler, Perales, & Western, 2015;

Gerson, 2009). Youthattitudes capture changing

cultural ideals that are less likely to have been

reconciled with adulthood realities, an under-

studied viewpoint (Brooks & Bolzendahl, 2004;

Gerson, 2009, 2011; Plutzer, 1988; Tallichet

& Willits, 1986). If the development of perva-

sive beliefs in egalitarian essentialist ideology

explains some of the stall in the gender revolu-

tion, egalitarian essentialism should not only be

visible in reaction to unrealized expectations of

gender equality in adulthood but also embraced

by youth. Unquestionably, adult attitudes are

important to understanding culture as it operates

today; the advantage of studying youth is that

their ideals provide an indicator of aspirations

and therefore serve as potential harbingers of

future social change.

Cotter et al. (2011) appeal for more empirical

evidence of changing gender attitudes in the fol-

lowing: “If the turnaround of the 1990s derived

from this new ‘egalitarian but traditional’ frame

for understanding gender relations, we will need

a broader array of attitude questions to tap the

public’smultidimensional understanding of gen-

der roles” (p. 286). We answered their call by

investigating trends in young people’s beliefs

about gender in the marketplace, in the family,

and at their intersection (e.g., mothers’ employ-

ment). To do so, we took advantage of the data

from the 1976–2015 waves of the Monitoring

the Future survey, which include a wide range

of questions capturing the gender attitudes of

American high school seniors.

B

Research on the stalled gender revolution has

focused on gender discrepancies in fallback

plans for unrealized goals of equality (Ger-

son, 2009; Pedulla & Thébaud, 2015), that is,

the cooptation of feminist ideology, such as

endorsement of choices in place of goals of

equal opportunity (Percheski, 2008; Williams,

2000), and beliefs in intensive mothering ide-

als (Hays, 1996). Compiling these ndings,

scholars have argued that a stall in progressive

gender attitudes resulted from the emergence

of a new ideology of separate-but-equal gender

beliefs, labeled egalitarian essentialism (Charles

& Grusky, 2004; Cotter et al., 2011; England,

2010). To investigate whether this explanation

can account for the diverging outcomes in the

marketplace and within families, we empirically

examined whether trends in attitudes about

gender showed evidence of a rise in egalitarian

essentialism ideology, analyzed whether these

trends varied by domain in ways consistent with

the gender stall primarily occurring in the family

domain, and discerned potential mechanisms

driving such changes in gender attitudes.