Generational Dissonance or Cultural Persistence? European Immigration and the Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Beliefs

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary perspectives on gender highlight the multilevel processes that maintain the gender system, from the hegemonic cultural beliefs embedded in state institutions to the gendered interactions that occur in everyday life. This study investigates immigration as a source of diversity and adaptation in the gender system. Using data on immigrant and native adolescents in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU), we examine the intergenerational transmission of attitudes about the domestic division of labor. Our results show a strong association between mother’s gender attitudes and child’s gender attitudes among both immigrants and natives, with no significant difference between the two groups. The persistence of beliefs grounded in family culture results in significantly higher levels of gender traditionalism among adolescent children of immigrants as compared to their native peers. These results underscore the centrality of families as a relational context that contributes both to the reproduction of cultural beliefs about gender and the slow pace of shifts in hegemonic gender beliefs in response to social change.