Mick Cunningham

Changing Attitudes toward the Male Breadwinner, Female Homemaker Family Model: Influences of Women's Employment and Education over the Lifecourse

Declines in support for the male breadwinner, female homemaker family model in recent decades have been thoroughly documented, but research into the way such attitudes change over the lifecourse remains limited. Drawing on panel data and latent growth curve modeling techniques, the study identifies patterns and predictors of attitude change from 1977 through 1993. Womens support for gender specialization in marriage declined rapidly from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, but this was followed by an interval of stability until the mid-1990s. Education is negatively associated with support for the male breadwinner model, but there was educational convergence in attitudes between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. The results highlight the critical role of womens employment for explaining the pattern of attitude change across the lifecourse.

Influences of Women’s Employment on the Gendered Division of Household Labor Over the Life Course Evidence From a 31-Year Panel Study

Drawing on data from a panel study of White women spanning 31 years, the analyses examine the influence of women’s employment on the gendered division of household labor. Multiple dimensions of women’s employment are investigated, including accumulated employment histories, current employment status, current employment hours, and relative income. Results from fixed effect and change score models suggest that the husbands of women who accumulate more employment experience over the course of marriage perform a relatively larger amount of routine housework than the husbands of women with shorter employment histories. Women’s employment status at a given point in time also increases men’s relative participation in routine housework, and the influence of women’s employment status operates in part by increasing women’s support for egalitarian roles between spouses. Finally, women’s hours of employment and relative income are stronger predictors of housework allocation than is their current employment status.

Gender in Cohabitation and Marriage The Influence of Gender Ideology on Housework Allocation Over the Life Course

The analysis examines the direct and indirect influences of early gender socialization on the allocation of routine housework later in the life course. The study articulates hypotheses suggesting that the relationship between gender socialization early in adulthood and housework allocation later in adulthood is moderated by gender and union type and is mediated by subsequent contextual characteristics of the couple. The analysis draws on panel data from a sample of 586 young adults spanning 31 years. Findings indicate that married mens attitudes about gender early in adulthood are more influential for the later division of labor than are married womens attitudes, but gender differences in the influence of early attitudes on later housework patterns are not present among cohabitors. The influence of early gender socialization on later housework allocation is mediated by couple-level resources and time availability among cohabitors but not among married individuals.

The influence of parents’ marital quality on adult children’s attitudes toward marriage and its alternatives: Main and moderating effects

Drawing on a panel study of parents and children, we investigate linkages between parents’ marital quality and adult children’s attitudes toward a range of family issues, including premarital sex, cohabitation, lifelong singlehood, and divorce. We hypothesize that parents’ marital quality will be negatively related to children’s support for these behaviors in adulthood and that parents’ marital quality will condition the intergenerational transmission of attitudes toward these issues. We find some evidence that parents’ marital quality influences children’s support for divorce and premarital sex. More important, our analyses show that parents’ marital quality facilitates the intergenerational transmission of attitudes. Parents’ attitudes toward premarital sex, cohabitation, and being single are more strongly linked to those same attitudes among their young adult children when parents’ marital quality is high than when it is low.

Narratives of Socialization: Perceptions of Parental Influence After Childhood Divorce

Despite substantial research on the consequences of parental divorce, no studies have investigated offspring discourse about parents’ influences. This study draws on a sample of university students and uses a grounded theory approach to identify four types of socialization narratives. These narratives include (a) fear of unintentional modeling, (b) absence of effective modeling, (c) determination to avoid parental mistakes, and (d) fear of self- or partner change. For the first three types, young adults link perceptions of relationship socialization to a specific parental trait or relationship pattern. The fourth type reflects generalized conclusions about human change over the life course.