We study whether parents modify their attitudes towards gender norms after childbirth. By comparing their answers before and after childbirth, we observe that parents become more traditional. Moreover, we find that this effect is more pronounced in contexts where it is more difficult to reconcile work and care responsibilities. This finding shows that people adjust their attitudes to their circumstances.

1. Empirical Analysis
We use a PSM + DiD approach to provide causal estimates
Pr 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑖,𝑡 = 𝛼 + 𝛽1𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖 + 𝛽2𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑡 + 𝛽3𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖 × 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑡
(1)Family related norms (2) Women in Labor market
What we know
Qualitative evidence that
- Having a child leads to changes in
roles within couples
- Focus on short term changes
Limited quantitative evidence
- Mostly from Anglo-saxon countries
- Stronger evidence from
daughters
- Outcomes: political views, norms.
Does childbearing foster traditional attitudes
towards gender norms?
Lucas van der Velde
SGH, FAME|GRAPE, University of Warsaw
Data: Gender and
Generations Survey
Features
- Longitudinal data:
- 4-5 years between waves
- Collected between 2002 -2015
- Observe resp before and after birth
- ~ 12 k obs. from 10 countries
(Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, France, Georgia,
Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Russia)
Items on gender norms
- Family related:
1. Women require a child to be fulfilled
2. Men require a child to be fulfilled
3. Pre-school children suffer if their mother works
- Women in labor market
4. When jobs are scarce, men have more right
than women.
5. If women earns more than husband, it is not
good for the relationship
6. Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as a paid
job
All items were converted to 0-1, where 1
expresses agree / strongly agree
How do we contribute?
(1) We study changes in expressed
attitudes around childbirth
(2) The comparative analysis extends
results to more countries
(3) Compare results for mothers and
fathers
(4) We link changes in attitudes to
country characteristics
Heterogeneity results
We make three distinctions across countries
(a) CEE vs non CEE (see figure on right)
(b)High vs low differentiation of gender roles
(c) Availability of institutionalized care
(d)Share of tasks by women before birth
Conclusions
- Women (& men) adopt more traditional views on gender norms after childbirth
- Effect is stronger in CEE countries, where availability of care is lower, where and
where there is greater differentiation
- Relationship is consistent with cognitive dissonance models
- Consequences for gender gaps (?)
Questions, comments?
w: grape.org.pl/lvandervelde
t: @lvelde4 , @grape_org
e: lvandervelde@grape.org.pl
Women need a child
to be fulfilled
Men need a child
to be fulfilled
Pre-school children suffer
when mother works
When jobs are scarce
men have priority
Relation suffers when
woman earns more than man
Being a housewife is as
fulfilling as paid work
-.05 0 .05 .1 .15
ß3 + 90% CI
Men Women
CEE countries
Women need a child
to be fulfilled
Men need a child
to be fulfilled
Pre-school children suffer
when mother works
When jobs are scarce
men have priority
Relation suffers when
woman earns more than man
Being a housewife is as
fulfilling as paid work
-.15 -.1 -.05 0 .05 .1
ß3 + 90% CI
Men Women
Non-CEE countries
Women need a child
to be fulfilled
Men need a child
to be fulfilled
Pre-school children suffer
when mother works
-.05 0 .05 .1 .15
ß3 + 90% CI
Men Women
When jobs are scarce
men have priority
Relation suffers when
woman earns more than man
Being a housewife is as
fulfilling as paid work
-.1 -.05 0 .05 .1
ß3 + 90% CI
Men Women
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