Gender-Role Attitude Change of Young Women: Influential Factors from a Panel Study

Abstract

Results of this panel study document liberal shifts in the sex-role attitudes of a sample of 294 young women between 1970 (as high school sophomores) and 1981. The women's adolescent attitudes were associated with mothers' education and subjects' later educational attainment, but not with their marital status, fertility, employment or mothers' early work status. Gender-role attitude change over the 11-year period was positively related to employment, income and education. However, mother's education tempered the modernizing effect of daughter's advanced schooling. Among the employed, married women changed their attitudes more than did unmarried women. This difference declined, however, with increasing time in the labor force.