Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age
Employment among mothers has been rising in recent decades, although mothers of young children often work fewer hours than other women do. Parallel to this trend, approval of maternal employment has increased, albeit not evenly across groups. However, differences in attitudes remain unexplored despi...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Federal Institute for Population Research
2023-07-01
|
| Series: | Comparative Population Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CPoS/article/view/578 |
| _version_ | 1797777612061278208 |
|---|---|
| author | Ludovica Gambaro C. Katharina Spiess Katharina Wrohlich Elena Ziege |
| author_facet | Ludovica Gambaro C. Katharina Spiess Katharina Wrohlich Elena Ziege |
| author_sort | Ludovica Gambaro |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Employment among mothers has been rising in recent decades, although mothers of young children often work fewer hours than other women do. Parallel to this trend, approval of maternal employment has increased, albeit not evenly across groups. However, differences in attitudes remain unexplored despite their importance for better understanding mothers’ labour market behaviour. Meanwhile, the employment of fathers has remained stable and attitudes towards paternal employment do not differ as much as attitudes towards maternal employment do between socio-economic groups.
This paper examines attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. It focuses on Germany, drawing on data from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA). The survey explicitly asks whether mothers and fathers should be in paid work, work part-time or full-time, presenting respondents with fictional family profiles that vary the youngest child’s age. Unlike previous studies, the analysis compares the views of respondents with different origins: West Germany, East Germany, immigrants from different world regions, and second-generation migrants in West Germany.
The results highlight remarkable differences between respondents from West and East Germany, with the former group displaying strong approval for part-time employment among mothers and fathers of very young children and the latter group reporting higher approval for full-time employment. Immigrant groups are far from homogenous, holding different attitudes depending on their region of origin. Taken together, the results offer a nuanced picture of attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. We discuss these findings in relation to labour markets participation in Germany.
* This article belongs to a special issue on “Family Research and Demographic Analysis – New Insights from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA)”. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T23:07:17Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1694d7e1edeb449183bad90ae03ad89c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1869-8980 1869-8999 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T23:07:17Z |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | Federal Institute for Population Research |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Comparative Population Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-1694d7e1edeb449183bad90ae03ad89c2023-07-18T12:55:24ZengFederal Institute for Population ResearchComparative Population Studies1869-89801869-89992023-07-014810.12765/CPoS-2023-14485Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child AgeLudovica Gambaro0C. Katharina Spiess1Katharina Wrohlich2Elena Ziege3Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)DIW Berlin – German Institute for Economic ResearchFederal Institute for Population Research (BiB)Employment among mothers has been rising in recent decades, although mothers of young children often work fewer hours than other women do. Parallel to this trend, approval of maternal employment has increased, albeit not evenly across groups. However, differences in attitudes remain unexplored despite their importance for better understanding mothers’ labour market behaviour. Meanwhile, the employment of fathers has remained stable and attitudes towards paternal employment do not differ as much as attitudes towards maternal employment do between socio-economic groups. This paper examines attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. It focuses on Germany, drawing on data from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA). The survey explicitly asks whether mothers and fathers should be in paid work, work part-time or full-time, presenting respondents with fictional family profiles that vary the youngest child’s age. Unlike previous studies, the analysis compares the views of respondents with different origins: West Germany, East Germany, immigrants from different world regions, and second-generation migrants in West Germany. The results highlight remarkable differences between respondents from West and East Germany, with the former group displaying strong approval for part-time employment among mothers and fathers of very young children and the latter group reporting higher approval for full-time employment. Immigrant groups are far from homogenous, holding different attitudes depending on their region of origin. Taken together, the results offer a nuanced picture of attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. We discuss these findings in relation to labour markets participation in Germany. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Family Research and Demographic Analysis – New Insights from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA)”.https://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CPoS/article/view/578gender attitudesmaternal employmentpaternal employmenteast and west germanymigration background |
| spellingShingle | Ludovica Gambaro C. Katharina Spiess Katharina Wrohlich Elena Ziege Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age Comparative Population Studies gender attitudes maternal employment paternal employment east and west germany migration background |
| title | Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age |
| title_full | Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age |
| title_fullStr | Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age |
| title_full_unstemmed | Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age |
| title_short | Should Mama or Papa Work? Variations in Attitudes towards Parental Employment by Country of Origin and Child Age |
| title_sort | should mama or papa work variations in attitudes towards parental employment by country of origin and child age |
| topic | gender attitudes maternal employment paternal employment east and west germany migration background |
| url | https://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CPoS/article/view/578 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ludovicagambaro shouldmamaorpapaworkvariationsinattitudestowardsparentalemploymentbycountryoforiginandchildage AT ckatharinaspiess shouldmamaorpapaworkvariationsinattitudestowardsparentalemploymentbycountryoforiginandchildage AT katharinawrohlich shouldmamaorpapaworkvariationsinattitudestowardsparentalemploymentbycountryoforiginandchildage AT elenaziege shouldmamaorpapaworkvariationsinattitudestowardsparentalemploymentbycountryoforiginandchildage |