Objective: To find out if the relations between a mother’s employment status and level of education, and her daughter’s gender role attitudes are mediated by a mother’s own attitudes concerning gender roles and her parenting style. (Carine 1)

Past related research findings: In general research has shown that daughters of employed and more educated mothers are less traditional in their gender role attitudes than of daughters of nonemployed less educated mothers. (Carine 1) The mother’s level of education strongly predicts her daughter’s educational and career goals. (Zuckerman 1111) Children of employed mothers, especially daughters, have more egalitarian and less stereotyped attitudes compared to children of unemployed mothers. (Carine 1) The employment status of a mother and her level of education are related to her attitudes concerning gender roles: more educated and employed mothers are found to have nontraditional attitudes. (Hoff-Ginsberg and Tardiff) Working mothers are more likely to independence in their children (a nontraditional female role) than nonworking mothers. (Hoffman 862) Mothers from high socioeconomic strata are more likely to be authoritative (make high demands for mature behavior but respond to their children’s individuality and seek to induce their understanding of parental expectations and sanctions (Greenberger and Goldberg 24)) than mothers form low socioeconomic strata. (Hoff-Ginsberg and Tardiff) This authoritative style of child rearing has also been linked to nontraditional gender attitudes of daughters. (Greenberger and Goldberg 29) The ideas of contemporary adolescents represent a belief system that emphasizes egalitarianism toward roles of women and men, in which a women's identity is no longer fixed to her role as a mother and wife only. (Hochschild)

Daughters and mothers were asked to fill out a number of surveys. The first was about motherhood and simply reflected traditional and nontraditional ideas about becoming a mother (e.g. nontraditional might be "A woman does not need to have children to be happy"). The second questionnaire was concerned with women’s’ roles. A traditional response here might be "It is most natural for the man to be the breadwinner and for the woman to stay home and tend to the children." The final has to do with child rearing. Daughters had to rate their mother on the qualities of encouraging autonomy, encouraging conformity, and responsiveness. The mothers had rate themselves on encouraging autonomy, conformist attitude (should daughters comply to traditional norms and values), and conformist child rearing (does mother feel she teaches daughter to comply with fixed rules). And, of course, mothers had to provide personal information such as educational background and employment status.

Results:

--The attitudes of daughters are highly influenced by the gender role attitudes of their mother as well as by a conformist child-rearing attitude. (Carine 8)

--The more traditional the gender role attitudes of a mother, the stronger her tendency to emphasize a daughter’s conformity, and the more traditional her daughter’s attitudes appear to be. (Carine 8)

--Mothers’ gender role attitudes not only influence their daughters’ gender role attitudes indirectly, but also directly. Daughters may directly internalize their mothers’ attitudes because they perceive these attitudes to be realized in the practice of their mother’s daily life. (Carine 8)

--The daughters in the study held more nontraditional role than their mothers concerning motherhood and women's roles. (Carine 8)

--Less and more educated mothers differed in their gender role attitudes, with more educated mothers holding more nontraditional attitudes, resulting in more nontraditional attitudes of their daughters. (Carine 9)

--Although the gender role attitudes of daughters are more influenced by the mothers' gender role attitudes than by her child-rearing style, a mother's conformist orientation substantially contributed to the extent in which daughters develop a more traditional view on gender roles. (Carine 9)

--An authoritative child-rearing style tends to influence daughters' development of more nontraditional gender role attitudes directly. (Carine 9)
 

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