Abstract
The current study investigates how descriptive and prescriptive gender norms that communicate work and family identities to be (in)compatible with gender identities limit or enhance young men and women’s family and career aspirations. Results show that young adults (N = 445) perceived gender norms to assign greater compatibility between female and family identities and male and work identities than vice versa, and that young men and women mirror their aspirations to this traditional division of tasks. Spill-over effects of norms across life domains and cross-over effects of norms across gender-groups indicated that young women, more than young men, aimed to ‘have it all’: mirroring their career ambitions to a male career model, while keeping their family aspirations high. Moreover, young women opposed traditional role divisions in the family domain by decreasing their family aspirations in face of norms of lower family involvement or higher career involvement of men. Conversely, in line with traditional gender roles, young men showed lower family aspirations in the face of strong male career norms; and showed increases in their career aspirations when perceiving women to take up more family roles. Young men’s family aspirations were, however, more influenced by new norms prescribing men to invest more in their family, suggesting opportunities for change. Together, these findings show that through social norms, young adults’ gender identity affects aspirations for how to manage the co-presence of their work and family identities. Altering these norms may provide leverage for change to allow both men and women to combine their multiple identities in an enriching way.
Highlights
Many people on a daily basis manage the combination of two identities central in their lives: their work identity and their family identity
We argue that work, family, and gender identities are so intertwined that gender norms are influential within gender-groups and life domains, and from one life domain to the other
Before looking into the relation between gender norms and young adults’ own aspirations, we examined how young males and females perceived descriptive and prescriptive gender norms regarding family and career identities
Summary
Many people on a daily basis manage the combination of two identities central in their lives: their work identity and their family identity. Advancing research that shows norms are highly influential within a gender group and life domain (Major, 1994; Wood and Eagly, 2009; Brown and Diekman, 2010), we argue that due to the intertwined nature of gender, work, and family identities, norms may ‘spill-over’ from one life domain to the other (e.g., family norms affecting career aspirations) and ‘cross-over’ from one gendergroup to the other (e.g., norms for men affecting women’s aspirations). Young adulthood (18–30 years old; Rindfuss, 1991) is a crucial life stage in which decisions are made regarding ways of managing the combination of work and family identities (Brown and Diekman, 2010; Weisgram et al, 2010), and a stage in which instigating possible change toward gender equality in the future is most likely We examined both descriptive and prescriptive norms. What people see around them and what they believe to be appropriate may both push social change, and this change could push toward more traditional or more egalitarian gender roles
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