Gender-role attitudes and parental work decisions after childbirth: A longitudinal dyadic perspective with dual-earner couples

Abstract

The present research investigates the impact of gender-role attitudes on dual-earner couples' parental work decisions after childbirth. We assumed both parents' length of leave and changes in working hours are associated with individual as well as the partner's attitudes. Dyadic data from two lagged-design studies (Study 1: N=138 heterosexual couples; Study 2: N=168 heterosexual couples) were analyzed by using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) to account for interdependencies between spouses. As expected, in Study 1 fathers' individual attitudes predicted their changes in working hours. Fathers with more egalitarian attitudes decreased their working hours to a larger extent. Most importantly with respect to the interdependence between couples' attitudes and each partner's decisions concerning the work and the family domains, results of both studies showed that fathers' attitudes predicted their wives' work decisions: women with more egalitarian partners took shorter leaves and decreased their working hours less. In contrast, mothers' attitudes did not influence their husbands' behavior. Hence, this research highlights the importance of couple dynamics, that is, men's gender-role attitudes, to explain women's work-involvement decisions after childbirth.