It’s a Family (Policy) Affair: Family Policies and Heterogeneity in Gender Attitudes

Abstract

Why do younger cohorts in advanced democracies hold more conservative gender attitudes? Rather than understanding these attitudes as a “backlash,” I argue that these represent mixes of traditional and egalitarian attitudes that ultimately reflect the gendered character of family policies. Using an original dataset of family policies, I show that policies which alleviate care burdens and encourage workforce participation of mothers are related to support for working mothers. Conversely, policies which reinforce traditional divisions of labor are linked to greaterprevalence of essentialist beliefs. Different combinations of family policies cross-pressure gender attitudes, resulting in complex groupings, or “varieties of egalitarianism.”

Youth’s Political Identity and Fertility Desires

“…Republican norms or that their greater religiosity and stronger tendency to embrace traditional gender roles could lead them to want more children Jozwiak, 2022;Pew, 2014;. Again, evidence supported this hypothesis.…”

“…Partisan gaps may be informed by religiosity, thoughts about childbearing, and gender role views. For example, Republicans are more religious and favor traditional roles (Margolis, 2018;Pew, 2014), which are related to fertility intentions Jozwiak, 2022;Pew, 2014). Thus, along with testing whether gaps expanded over time, we show the degree to which religiosity and gender role attitudes explain these gaps.…”

“…Democratic youth, internalizing messages about the future, may feel a growing ambivalence about having children in a world with climate issues . Finally, partisan gaps in religiosity and gender role attitudes have widened over time Jozwiak, 2022;, likely leading to larger gaps in fertility desires.…”

“…Recognizing that partisan differences are informed by levels of religiosity and beliefs about gender roles, we test the extent to which these factors explain partisan gaps. Republicans tend to be more religious and more likely to endorse traditional gender roles than Democrats (Jozwiak, 2022;Pew, 2014), and religiosity and gender attitudes are related to fertility intentions . By comparing partisan gaps before and after adjusting for these factors, we assess the extent to which gaps are influenced by variables closely tied to both political identity and fertility (although unmeasured factors could drive partisan gaps).…”

Constrained ‘choices’: Optional familism and educational divides in work‐family arrangements

“…Second, the historical legacy of familism still forms the basis for much of Continental European political economy and the structure of families. These institutional legacies did not die out with changes in policies, and continue to shape patterns of gender attitudes and preferences for different types of family-life balance (see Jozwiak, 2021 in turn leading to selection into different gendered arrangements when parents have children. A second challenge is cultural; while evidence points to changing gender norms especially among individuals with lower to middle levels of education (Zoch & Schober, 2018) and even grandparents (Unterhofer & Wrohlich, 2017), it remains the case that the uptake of childcare is lower among less advantaged groups (see Pavolini & Van Lancker, 2018).…”