Attitudes towards Parental Employment across Europe, in Australia and in Japan

Abstract

Based on the Generations and Gender Survey this paper studies attitudes towards parentalemployment in 14 European countries—among them ten located in central and easternEurope, Australia and Japan. In a multivariate framework we examine how the acceptanceof the employment of mothers of pre-school children differs. Our aim is to find out howattitudes vary across countries and sex. Since the role of fathers in the process ofsocialisation of their children has been underestimated and underinvestigated for a longtime, we take the challenge of studying attitude towards fathers’ concentration on work.The country-specific ranking in terms of traditional attitudes towards employment ofmothers with pre-school children is in tune with the expectations derived from the SecondDemographic Transition (SDT) theory, with the exception of Romania. Australia holds amedium position, Japan an ambivalent one. We find a large diversity in the level oftraditionalism among the central and eastern European countries. Variation in genderdifferences is substantial; differences are largest where SDT is at an advanced level.Regarding fathers’ concentration on work, the majority presumes negative consequencesfor children, but the answering pattern shows no clear relation with advancement in theSDT.

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