Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental-leave intentions in young adults (18-30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identified as women; 5,062 identified as men) across 37 countries that varied in parental-leave policies and societal gender equality. In all countries, women intended to take longer leave than men. National parental-leave policies and women's political representation partially explained cross-national variations in the gender gap. Gender gaps in leave intentions were paradoxically larger in countries with more gender-egalitarian parental-leave policies (i.e., longer leave available to both fathers and mothers). Interestingly, this cross-national variation in the gender gap was driven by cross-national variations in women's (rather than men's) leave intentions. Financially generous leave and gender-egalitarian policies (linked to men's higher uptake in prior research) were not associated with leave intentions in men. Rather, men's leave intentions were related to their individual gender attitudes. Leave intentions were inversely related to career ambitions. The potential for existing policies to foster gender equality in paid and unpaid work is discussed.
Women continue to be underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and research suggests that academic-gender stereotypes can be a contributing factor. In the present research, we examined whether adolescent daughters' and their parents' gender stereotypes about math and liberal arts would predict the academic orientation of daughters at a critical time of career related decision-making. Methods: Participants included girls in late adolescence (N = 185, M age = 17) and at least one parent (N = 230, M age = 49), resulting in 147 mother-daughter dyads and 83 father-daughter dyads. Implicit academic-gender stereotypes were measured using an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and explicit stereotypes, academic attitudes, academic ability, and daughters' intentions to pursue a degree in STEM were measured using self-reports. Results: Neither mothers' nor fathers' implicit or explicit academic-gender stereotypes predicted adolescent daughters' implicit stereotypes; however, fathers' explicit stereotypes predicted daughters' explicit stereotypes. In addition, daughters' academic orientation, a latent variable composed of adolescent girls' academic attitudes, academic ability, and intentions to pursue a degree in STEM, was predicted by daughters' own implicit and explicit stereotypes. This was the case for relative orientation toward math versus liberal arts, as well as math (but not liberal arts) orientation. Conclusions: These findings suggest the importance of challenging academic-gender stereotypes during adolescence and suggest that at this stage in development, mothers' and fathers' academic stereotypes might have limited relation to daughters' own implicit associations with academic domains.Women continue to complete university degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at lower rates than men, leading to their continued underrepresentation in STEM careers (Statistics Canada, 2015). Considering the prestige, high pay, and demand for qualified personnel in STEM (Jacobs, 2014;Smith, 2014), this gender disparity has the potential to place women at an
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