Beliefs about the Gender Division of Parental Leave and Characteristics Associated with Them

Multiple Dimensions of Gender Ideologies: How They Relate to Normative Judgments of the Gender Division of Parental Leave

“…More egalitarian gender ideologies towards the division of paid work and housework and weaker gender essentialism are associated with more egalitarian judgements of parental leave sharing, corroborating previous findings from Europe and the United States (Jugović 2016;Valarino et al 2018). The dimensions differ in the strength of their associations with normative judgements, which supports the multidimensional understanding of gender ideologies and is in line with evidence on varying influences of multiple gender ideology dimensions (e.g., Streckenbach, Castiglioni, and Schober 2022).…”

“…Therefore, I would generally expect increasing egalitarianism on the gender ideology dimensions to be associated with more egalitarian normative judgements of the division of parental leave in terms of a shorter leave for the mother and a longer leave for the father. This is in line with evidence that more egalitarian gender ideologies toward the division of labor and on a combined index are associated with more egalitarian views on parental leave sharing in Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States (Jugović 2016;Valarino et al 2018). While this assumption seems reasonable regarding the dimensions of joint vs. separate public and private spheres and gender essentialism, expectations are less clear regarding the association with support for individual choice because gender roles are less strongly prescribed and thus more and less traditional divisions of parental leave could be recommended.…”