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The 'mighty girl' effect: does parenting daughters alter attitudes towards gender norms?

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  • Borrell-Porta, Mireia
  • Costa-Font, Joan
  • Philipp, Julia

Abstract

We study the effect of parenting daughters on attitudes towards gender norms in the UK; specifically, attitudes towards the traditional male breadwinner norm in which it is the husband's role to work and the wife's to stay at home. We find robust evidence that rearing daughters decreases fathers' likelihood to hold traditional attitudes. This result is driven by fathers of school-aged daughters, for whom the effects are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects. Our estimates suggest that fathers' probability to support traditional gender norms declines by approximately 3%age points (8%) when parenting primary school-aged daughters and by 4%age points (11%) when parenting secondary school-aged daughters. The effect on mothers' attitudes is generally not statistically significant. These findings are consistent with exposure and identity theories. We conclude that gender norm attitudes are not stable throughout the life-course and can significantly be shaped by adulthood experiences.

Suggested Citation

  • Borrell-Porta, Mireia & Costa-Font, Joan & Philipp, Julia, 2019. "The 'mighty girl' effect: does parenting daughters alter attitudes towards gender norms?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90261, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:90261
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    Cited by:

    1. Borrell Porta, Mireia & Contreras Silva, Valentina & Costa-Font, Joan, 2023. "Is employment during motherhood a ‘value changing experience’?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118054, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Somville, Vincent, 2019. "Having a Daughter Reduces Male Violence Against a Partner," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 24/2019, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    3. M. Niaz Asadullah & Elisabetta De Cao & Fathema Zhura Khatoon & Zahra Siddique, 2021. "Measuring gender attitudes using list experiments," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 367-400, April.
    4. Eiji Yamamura, 2021. "Granddaughter and voting for a female candidate," Papers 2102.13464, arXiv.org.
    5. van Lent, Max, 2022. "Fathering Daughters and Personality," IZA Discussion Papers 15012, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Xiaodong Sun & Kaisheng Lai & Hong Han & Chenyan Yang, 2023. "Could Children’s Gender Predict Their Parents’ Housework Behavior?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender norms; gender division of work; gender role attitudes; attitude formation; daughters; child gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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