Social Change and Sex-Role Change in Adolescent Orientations Toward Life, Work, and Achievement: 1964-1975

Abstract

Widespread change in sex roles is assumed to be occurring at the present time. However, research evidence qualifies this assumption. Emerging evidence shows change in labor force participation, sexuality, and attitudes about women's role, but evidence on division of labor, sex-typed occupations, and persistence of stereotypes suggests stability, not change. The present study examines change in life goals, occupational values, and achievement orientations of 5600 graduating high school seniors from the same seventeen Wisconsin high schools in 1964 and 1975. The results show considerable social change in the liberalization of orientations of both sexes consistent with general value changes in the broader society over this period. There is no evidence of sex-role change toward masculinization offemale roles. What change there is suggests a different dimension of change: liberation and intensification of feminine patterns consistent with the changes in the broader society, but not consistent with current conceptions of changing sex roles that are formulated in terms of masculinizing female roles. Finally, higher levels of achievement value orientations in the female students in both cohorts point toward a redefinition of sex-role content regarding achievement.