Skip to main content
Article
Gender Role Ideology and Life Course Transitions of Baby-Boom Women
Advances in Life Course Research (2012)
  • Merril D Silverstein, Syracuse University
  • Jessica P. Lendon, University of Southern California
Abstract

This study investigated the interrelationship between attitudes toward gender role egalitarianism and family and human capital decisions among a group of baby-boom women from 1971 to 2005. Using latent growth curve and latent difference modeling of 294 women, we found that early egalitarian values decreased the risk of becoming a mother and marrying and increased the risk of graduating college and working in the labor force. A sharp increase in egalitarianism was found between 1971 and 1985 that was more characteristic of women who graduated college and worked in the labor force. The stall of the post-1985 period was predicted (inversely) by earlier attitudes toward egalitarianism, but not by life decisions. Results suggest that early values were consequential for life pathways taken by these women and that more advantaged women were at the vanguard of the surge in egalitarian gender values during the 1970s and 1980s that subsequently moderated from the mid-1980s onward. There appears to be a convergence among women in their attitudes over time, characteristic of an institutionalization of gender role equality that blends liberal and traditional orientations. This study offers a long-historical view into how women's gender role attitudes change over historical time and the role that family and human capital factors play in that change.

Disciplines
Publication Date
2012
Publisher Statement
Copyright 2012 Advances in Life Course Research. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and Advances in Life Course Research. The article may be found at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040260812000202
Citation Information
Merril D Silverstein and Jessica P. Lendon. "Gender Role Ideology and Life Course Transitions of Baby-Boom Women" Advances in Life Course Research (2012)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/merril_silverstein/6/