Gender Roles Within the Family: A Study Across Three Language Regions of Switzerland

Abstract

The present study focuses on gender roles and attitudes towards gender roles within the family among young adults in Switzerland. The study is based on a quantitative survey of 928 university students in the German-, French-, and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. The gender roles of mothers and fathers are conceptualized along three dimensions: household, childcare, and paid employment. The results concerning gender roles in the heritage family of our respondents are in line with findings of previous studies and show that the young adults in our sample grew up in families with unequal gender roles, where mothers were responsible for the household and childcare and fathers were the breadwinners. The mothers’ contribution to the household and their involvement in childcare and in paid employment differ significantly across the three main parts of Switzerland. Concerning prospective views on the gender roles in their future family, the young adults in our sample indicated a tendency towards egalitarian attitudes. However, mothers’ contribution to household labor and childcare was projected to be higher than that of fathers; at the same time fathers were foreseen as making a larger contribution to the family income than mothers in the prospective family. Moreover, attitudes towards gender roles in their future family differed significantly across the three major parts of Switzerland and were related to the differences in gender roles they experienced in their heritage family.