Attitudes About Women’s Work and Childcare in the United States: An Age, Period, and Cohort Analysis

Miranda Berrigan , The Ohio State University
Claire M. Kamp Dush, The Ohio State University

Despite the almost even split in labor force participation between men and women in the United States, men have been much slower to take on roles that women previously occupied at home. Scholars have argued that the gender revolution has stalled, or is at the midpoint. Further, although working, women are still penalized in the workplace. One potential mechanism underlying the gender revolution may be perceptions of women, work, and childcare. Using data from the General Social Survey (1972-2016), we examined Age, Period, and Cohort effects in American views toward women working and children going to childcare. Age-period-cohort models were the best fit to the data. Preliminary analyses suggest older adults and more recent cohorts are less supportive of women working and childcare than younger participants and cohorts born around the 1950’s. However, period effects show that more recent periods are increasingly supportive of mothers working and children in childcare.

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 Presented in Session 9. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions; Gender, Race, & Ethnicity