scholarly journals How Do Gender Norms and Childcare Costs Affect Maternal Employment Across U.S. States?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Ruppanner ◽  
Caitlyn Collins ◽  
Liana Christin Landivar ◽  
William Scarborough

In this article we investigate how state-to-state differences in U.S. childcare costs and gender norms are associated with maternal employment. Although an abundance of research has examined factors that influence mothers’ employment, few studies explore the interrelationship between maternal employment and culture, policy, and individual resources across U.S. states. Using a representative sample of women in the 2017 American Community Survey along with state-level measures of childcare costs and gender norms, we examine the relationship between these state conditions and mothers’ probability of employment. We pay careful attention to differences in mothers’ level of education. Our results suggest that expensive childcare is associated with lower maternal employment, particularly for those with less education. For the college educated, expensive childcare is negatively associated with maternal employment in states with traditional gender norms that uphold mothers as primary caregivers. Among mothers with lower levels of education, gender norms have a limited association with employment. These findings suggest that highly educated mothers mobilize resources to remain in the labor force when paid work is supported by local gender norms. For less-educated mothers, expensive childcare predicts lower employment regardless of gender norms, indicating that structural constraints outweigh normative expectations among those with fewer resources.

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124322110469
Author(s):  
Leah Ruppanner ◽  
Caitlyn Collins ◽  
Liana Christin Landivar ◽  
William J. Scarborough

In this article, we investigate how state-to-state differences in U.S. childcare costs and gender norms are associated with maternal employment. Although an abundance of research has examined factors that influence mothers’ employment, few studies explore the interrelationship between maternal employment and culture, policy, and individual resources across U.S. states. Using a representative sample of women in the 2017 American Community Survey along with state-level measures of childcare costs and gender norms, we examine the relationship between these state conditions and mothers’ probability of employment. We pay careful attention to differences in mothers’ level of education. Our results suggest that expensive childcare is associated with lower maternal employment, particularly for those with less education. For the college educated, expensive childcare is negatively associated with maternal employment in states with traditional gender norms that uphold mothers as primary caregivers. Among mothers with lower levels of education, gender norms have a limited association with employment. These findings suggest that highly educated mothers mobilize resources to remain in the labor force when paid work is supported by local gender norms. For less-educated mothers, expensive childcare predicts lower employment regardless of gender norms, indicating that structural constraints outweigh normative expectations among those with fewer resources.


2019 ◽  
pp. 138-180
Author(s):  
Robert G. Boatright ◽  
Valerie Sperling

This chapter explores themes in the campaign advertising of Senate candidates and their allies in the 2016 general election. It details the ways in which Democrats sought to tie their opponents to Donald Trump, highlighting Trump’s more offensive statements, and alleging that their opponents were “weak” or unmanly in their response to Trump. It also examines the extent to which Republican candidates sought to distance themselves from Donald Trump’s campaign in their ads, and how campaigns on both sides sought to tie their opponents to Trump and Clinton. The chapter pays particular attention to explicit and implicit references to gender and gender norms. It also examines whether particular ads were aimed at influencing particular demographic groups (men, women) by activating gender-normative expectations about candidates, in both positive ads and attack ads.


SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401770179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Elise Glaser Holthe ◽  
Eva Langvik

The objective of the study was to aid an understanding of women’s experiences of living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with special consideration of the role of stigma and gender-specific issues. Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with five women aged 32 to 50 years, all diagnosed with ADHD as adults. The interviews were analyzed in accordance with thematic analysis. The data analyses were centered around five core themes: (a) from unidentified childhood ADHD to adult diagnosis, (b) present main symptoms and challenges, (c) conflict between ADHD symptoms and gender norms and expectations, (d) stigma of ADHD: “People think it’s a fake disease,” and (e) managing ADHD symptoms and identifying strengths. Despite their difficulties, all participants are highly educated and employed, and differ from common portrayals of individuals with ADHD as observably hyperactive, disruptive, or globally impaired. The participants are reluctant about disclosure of their diagnosis, due to fear of negative judgment and lack of understanding from others. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing and targeting ADHD as a serious disorder that yields continuing, and even increasing, impairment in multiple areas into adulthood. Gender-specific issues of ADHD need to be examined further, particularly challenges associated with motherhood. Stigma and the conflict between ADHD symptoms and gender norms complicate women’s experiences of living with ADHD, and should be essential areas of focus in research, educational settings, and the media.


Paragraph ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-316
Author(s):  
Kayte Stokoe

Inspired by Judith Butler's conceptualization of drag as ‘gender parody’, I develop the conceptual frame of ‘textual drag’ in order to define and examine the relationship between parody, satire and gender. I test this frame by reading two seminal feminist works, Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928) and Monique Wittig's Le Corps lesbien (The Lesbian Body) (1973). Both texts lend themselves particularly persuasively to analysis with this frame, as they each use parodic strategies to facilitate proto-queer satirical critiques of reductive gender norms. Orlando deploys an exaggerated nineteenth-century biographical style, which foregrounds the protagonist's gender fluidity and her developing critique of the norms and systems that surround her, while Le Corps lesbien rewrites canonical romance narratives from a lesbian perspective, challenging the heterosexism inherent in these narratives and providing new modes of thinking about gender, desire and sexual interaction.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250000
Author(s):  
Tunvir Ahamed Shohel ◽  
Sara Niner ◽  
Samanthi Gunawardana

A significant body of multi-disciplinary research supports the proposition that women may experience empowerment from microfinance programs. This is based on the assumption that an increase in women’s financial contribution to the household helps to transform gender norms and relations which increases their decision-making power. However, the relationship between the strength and persistence of patriarchal gender norms within the household and women’s financial empowerment needs further exploration. This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method study comprising 331 surveys and 33 in-depth interviews with women receiving microfinance and their husbands in a southern sub-district of Bangladesh; it draws upon gender socialisation and gender performance theory to understand how patriarchal gender norms influence women’s financial empowerment in households receiving microfinance. Findings demonstrate that participation in microfinance programs has not shifted gender norms, nor financially empowered women. Women’s loans were largely controlled by men as prescribed by underlying, unchanged patriarchal gender norms. The inter-generational reproduction of patriarchal gender relations continued to reproduce a strict gendered division of labour that reinforced restrictions on women’s behaviour, mobility, and decision-making domains, and men’s dominance in household and economic decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 242
Author(s):  
Marcella Corsi ◽  
Giulia Zacchia ◽  
Izaskun Zuazu

Relatively little empirical research has analyzed the sources of students’ self-perceptions outside the US and Europe, and in new fields of study like renewable energy. This paper aims at filling this gap by identifying differences in self-efficacy levels of post-graduate students in Erasmus+ capacity-building programs on renewable energy in Argentinian and Guatemalan universities. We analyzed a sample of 43 students to test intersectional differences in self-efficacy, looking at students’ gender, country of origin, and maternal employment. Using the New General Self-Efficacy scale, we performed the t-test to compare mean differences in self-efficacy, and one-way and two-way ANOVA tests to check the consistency of the results. Our estimates did not show significant gender gaps in self-efficacy among renewable-energy post-graduate students, but they did uncover relevant country differences in mean self-efficacy levels, mainly due to differences in socio-economic indicators and gender norms between the two countries analyzed. Moreover, we found a mediating role of maternal employment in cross-country self-efficacy differences, whereas the characteristics of fathers appeared uninfluential. We conclude by stressing the importance of intersectional analysis in terms of country of origin, family backgrounds, and gender norms to increase knowledge about differences in self-efficacy of students.


2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan J. Troche ◽  
Nina Weber ◽  
Karina Hennigs ◽  
Carl-René Andresen ◽  
Thomas H. Rammsayer

Abstract. The ratio of second to fourth finger length (2D:4D ratio) is sexually dimorphic with women having higher 2D:4D ratio than men. Recent studies on the relationship between 2D:4D ratio and gender-role orientation yielded rather inconsistent results. The present study examines the moderating influence of nationality on the relationship between 2D:4D ratio and gender-role orientation, as assessed with the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, as a possible explanation for these inconsistencies. Participants were 176 female and 171 male university students from Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden ranging in age from 19 to 32 years. Left-hand 2D:4D ratio was significantly lower in men than in women across all nationalities. Right-hand 2D:4D ratio differed only between Swedish males and females indicating that nationality might effectively moderate the sexual dimorphism of 2D:4D ratio. In none of the examined nationalities was a reliable relationship between 2D:4D ratio and gender-role orientation obtained. Thus, the assumption of nationality-related between-population differences does not seem to account for the inconsistent results on the relationship between 2D:4D ratio and gender-role orientation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document