Gendered occupational aspirations among German youth: Role of parental occupations, gender division of labour, and family structure

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates how multiple domains of parental gender role socialisation as well as parent-child relationships and family structure may shape adolescents’ gendered occupational aspirations.
 Background: Young people with gender-typical aspirations have a higher chance of choosing gender-typical post-secondary education fields and are more likely to work in gender-typical occupations as adults. Gender norms, family structures and parent-child relationships have undergone profound changes in recent decades. We extend the intergenerational transmission literature by considering whether the influence of parental role modelling may vary according to parent-child relationships and family structure.
 Method: We draw on data from 2,235 adolescents from the German Socio-Economic Panel and apply logistic regressions.
 Results: Children whose fathers were employed in gender-typical jobs had a greater likelihood of aspiring to a more gender-typical occupation. This relationship was not significant among sons who did not live continuously with both parents since birth, who were generally more likely to aspire to gender-typical occupations. Surprisingly, the gender-typicality of fathers' occupations seemed more influential among daughters whose parents had separated than among those who lived continuously with both parents. Regarding the parental gender division of paid and unpaid work, only mothers' continuous non-employment was associated with daughters being more likely to aspire to a gender-typical occupation.
 Conclusion: On the whole, our findings suggest a rather weak influence of parental gender role modelling on children’s persistently gendered occupational aspirations in Germany. Yet, our study extends existing family research by pointing to significant variations across family structures.

(Un)making occupational gender segregation: Intergenerational reproduction of gender‐(a)typical occupational aspirations in China

“…Evidence on the association in gender orientation between adolescents' occupational aspirations and the same-sex parent's occupation has been widely reported to support indirect gender-role learning (Hitlin, 2006;Law & Schober, 2021;Liu et al, 2015), but without controlling for direct occupational imitation (except for Polavieja & Platt, 2014). If indirect gender-role learning shapes adolescents' gendered occupational aspirations over and above direct imitation, Hypothesis 1B will hold:…”

“…Over recent decades, researchers have built up a substantial body of theory and empirical evidence on the intergenerational reproduction of gendered occupational aspirations (Hitlin, 2006;Law & Schober, 2021;Liu et al, 2015;Polavieja & Platt, 2014). Building on and extending existing theories and evidence, this section develops a conceptual framework and systematic hypotheses to flesh out the mechanisms underpinning the intergenerational processes, as summarized in Figure 1.…”

“…Building on Bandura's (1977) social learning theory, the notion of role modeling posits that children emulate and learn from their parents' roles and behaviors. Although role modeling has been widely cited to explain the associations between parents' gender-typed occupations and the gender typicality of children's occupational aspirations (Auger et al, 2005;Busch-Heizmann, 2015;Cochran et al, 2011;Law & Schober, 2021), how role modeling actually works remains ambiguous. As a rare exception, Polavieja and Platt (2014) clearly distinguished between direct occupational imitation and indirect gender-role learning.…”

“…The family is a "gender depot" (Goffman, 1977) and parents function as key gender socialization agents for their children (Hu, 2015;Law & Schober, 2021). Gottfredson (1981) shows that although broad career aspirations begin to form in early childhood, adolescencedefined by the United Nations Children's Fund as ages 10-19 (UNICEF, 2019) -represents a crucial phase when individuals form more concrete and often gendered occupational aspirations.…”

“…showing notable intergenerational associations (Hitlin, 2006;Law & Schober, 2021;Liu et al, 2015;Polavieja & Platt, 2014;Schoon, 2001;Schuette et al, 2012).…”