Author
Listed:
- Elena Grinza
- Francesco Devicienti
- Mariacristina Rossi
- Davide Vannoni
Abstract
People’s attitudes about how paid and unpaid work should be divided between the members of a couple determine gendered socioeconomic outcomes to a great extent. It is thus important to understand how gender role attitudes (GRA) are formed and evolve. This article concentrates on a path-breaking event in life: becoming a parent. Using longitudinal data from the United Kingdom, the study shows that, in general, becoming a parent significantly shifts women’s GRA toward more traditional positions but leaves men’s attitudes unaffected. Prenatal attitudes are a critical factor. After parenthood occurs, results find a substantial traditionalization of attitudes for (both) progressive parents, while no significant change is observed for parents with conservative prenatal attitudes. Novel analyses show that the traditionalization of attitudes for progressive individuals, after they become parents, is stronger as postnatal arrangements in the division of paid and unpaid work are more traditional.HIGHLIGHTSGender role attitudes (GRA) become more conservative once one becomes a parent.Progressive prenatal GRA and traditional postnatal settings are key determinants.Cognitive dissonance and changes in gender identity are two potential mechanisms.Results suggest that traditional institutions can foster conservative GRA.More childcare services, paternity leaves, and part-time work for men are needed.
Suggested Citation
Elena Grinza & Francesco Devicienti & Mariacristina Rossi & Davide Vannoni, 2022.
"How Entry into Parenthood Shapes Gender Role Attitudes: New Evidence from The UK,"
Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 194-220, October.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:femeco:v:28:y:2022:i:4:p:194-220
DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2022.2081352
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:28:y:2022:i:4:p:194-220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.