692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx

6/9/2020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1
https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/common/popup/popup.d2l?ou=53535
5&queryString=ou%3D535355%26postId%3D61542527%26topi
cId%3D2994580%26i… 1/2
Subscribe Unsubscribe Next
Reply
Guidance Note-Project 1
Harpal Dhillon Jun 4, 2020 4:11 PM
I am reproducing below, the description of the deliverable
items for Project 1, titled ‘Network Design for Office
Building’.
The CTO has asked you to develop a network design that
provides the following:
A Microsoft word document that spells out your
network design, the recommended network cabling,
device(s), and connections between workstations,
device(s), and servers (in other words, summarize in
writing your recommendations to the above), and

develop
A physical network diagram that displays the
components specified above.
The instructions for the content of the MS WORD
document/report are quite clear and do not require any
explanation by me.
The physical network diagram will require some focused
thinking prior to its creation.
We have been provided a layout of one floor of the building.
It can be assumed that all three floors have identical
layouts.
There are two options for the layout of the physical network
diagram:
1. We can overlay the network on the building floor-
plan. In this case, we should start with each floor
javascript://
javascript://
javascript://
javascript://
javascript://
6/9/2020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1
https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/common/popup/popup.d2l?ou=53535
5&queryString=ou%3D535355%26postId%3D61542527%26topi
cId%3D2994580%26i… 2/2

plan, and lay-out the network on the floor plan. In
this mode, we have to show the links (cables/wireless)
connecting the network segments on different floors.
2. The second option is to lay-out the network, keeping
the multiple floors in mind. After the network diagram
has been completed, you should mark the floor
associated with each part/segment of the network.
In both cases, it is going to be impossible to create a
perfect presentation of the network. Please make sure that
all components and cables are properly labeled.
It is also important to read the contents of the grading
rubric, carefully, before you finalize the report and the
network diagram.
Harpal Dhillon
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Parenthood, Gender Attitudes, and Child’s Gender
Men’s and Women’s Gender-Role Attitudes across

the Transition to Parenthood: Accounting for Child’s
Gender
Francisco Perales, Yara Jarallah, and Janeen Baxter, The
University of Queensland
Gender-role attitudes capture individuals’ degree of support for
traditional divi-sions of paid and domestic work and have been
linked to the production andreproduction of gender inequality in
different social spheres. Previous
research has established that life-course transitions are related
to within-individual
over-time change in gender-role attitudes. Most importantly,
becoming a parent is
associated with shifts toward more traditional viewpoints.
Theories of attitude
change suggest that the gender of children should influence the
pattern of gender-
attitude shifts that accompany parenthood, but very few studies
have investigated
this. We add to this literature using Australian panel data from
the Household,
Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (n = 29,918
observations) stretch-
ing over 15 years and fixed-effects panel regression models. We
find that men’s and
women’s gender-role attitudes become more traditional when
they become parents,
with evidence that this process is more pronounced among men,
parents of daugh-
ters and, most of all, male parents of daughters.
Introduction
Gender-role attitudes capture individuals’ degree of support for
traditional divi-
sions of paid and domestic work and have been linked to the

production and
reproduction of gender inequality in different social spheres.
This is because
such attitudes influence the organization of domestic work and
childcare
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The authors would like to thank Tsui-o Tai, Walter Forrest,
Sergi Vidal, Stefanie Plage, and Chris
Ambrey for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts,
and Ella Kuskoff for her valuable
research assistance. This research was supported by the
Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre
of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course
(project number CE140100027). This
paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income, and
Labour Dynamics in Australia
(HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is
funded by the Australian Government
Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the
Melbourne Institute of Applied
Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The
findings and views reported in this paper,
however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to
either DSS or the Melbourne
Institute. Direct correspondence to Francisco Perales, Institute
for Social Science Research,
University of Queensland, Long Pocket Precinct, 80 Meiers Rd,
Building C, Indooroopilly,
Brisbane, QLD 4068, Australia; telephone: (+ 61) 7 3346 9964.
E-mail: [email protected]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on
behalf of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
For permissions,
please e-mail: [email protected]
Social Forces 97(1) 251–276, September 2018
doi: 10.1093/sf/soy015
Advance Access publication on 15 March 2018
Parenthood, Gender Attitudes, and Child’s Gender 251
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
by Adam Ellsworth, Adam Ellsworth
on 11 August 2018
mailto: [email protected]
responsibilities within households, and shape employment
pathways and career
aspirations in gendered ways (see Davis and Greenstein [2009]
for a review). It
is therefore important that we understand the factors associated
with variations
in individuals’ support for gender-egalitarian attitudes.
Research on changes in gender-role attitudes has chiefly
examined long-term
trends in societal levels of gender egalitarianism, differences
across cohorts, and
the relative contributions of cohort-replacement and intra-
cohort aging in pro-

ducing attitude change at the aggregate level (Brewster and
Padavic 2000;
Danigelis, Hardy, and Cutler 2007). A more recent and smaller
pool of studies
has begun to shift attention to whether and how gender-role
attitudes change
within individuals over their life courses. These studies have
provided compel-
ling evidence that key life-course transitions (e.g., attaining
educational qualifi-
cations, relationship entry and breakdown, and parenthood) are
associated with
within-individual change in gender-role attitudes (Cunningham
et al. 2005;
Evertsson 2013; Kroska and Elman 2009; Schober and Scott
2012).
The transition to parenthood has been the subject of a great deal
of attention in
this literature (Baxter et al. 2015), yet few studies have paid
attention to whether
the child’s gender moderates parenthood effects on gender-role
attitudes. This pos-
sibility has nevertheless been more thoroughly tested in relation
to other types of
attitudes and behaviors (see Raley and Bianchi [2006] for a
review). As Lee and
Conley (2016, 1104) suggest, it may be that “children socialize
their parents (rather
than the other way around).” As will be discussed, the notion of
child’s gender
being a factor influencing parental gender-role attitudes is in
fact embedded in the-
ories of gender-attitude change, including exposure-based and
interest-based theo-
ries (Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Conley and Rauscher 2013;

Kroska and Elman
2009; Lee and Conley 2016), perspectives based on gendered
societal expectations
(Bianchi and Milkie 2010; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005;
Deaux 1985; Lips
2001; Lorber 1995; Steiner 2007), and backfire effect theories
(Nyhan and Reifler
2010; Nyhan, Reifler, and Ubel 2013). The existing empirical
evidence is neverthe-
less limited and mixed with, to our knowledge, only four North
American studies
having examined this issue (Conley and Rauscher 2013;
Downey, Jackson, and
Powell 1994; Shafer and Malhotra 2011; Warner 1991). Of
these, only one
leverages longitudinal data (Shafer and Malhotra 2011).
In this paper, we examine whether and how the traditionalizing
effect of par-
enthood on the gender-role attitudes of men and women varies
with the gender
of firstborn children, considering all permutations of parents’
and child’s gender.
Unlike most previous cross-sectional studies, we use panel data
from the
Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia
(HILDA) Survey
stretching over 15 years and fixed-effects panel regression
models.
Background
Existing empirical evidence
A growing literature spanning across the social sciences is
concerned with the as-
sociations between the gender of children and parental and
family outcomes

252 Social Forces 97(1)
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
(Raley and Bianchi 2006). For example, there are reported links
between chil-
dren’s gender and marital stability (Morgan, Lye, and Condran
1988), parenting
practices (Lytton and Romney 1991), the allocation of
household labor
(Pollmann-Schult hias. 2015. Sons, Daughters, and the Parental
Division of Paid
Work and Housework. Journal of Family Issues 38(1):100–23."
2015), educa-
tional investments in children (Freese and Powell 1999), and
parental employ-
ment patterns (Lundberg and Rose 2002). Studies have also
revealed associations
between children’s gender and individual partisanship (Conley
and Rauscher
2013), CEO’s wage policies (Dahl, Dezso, and Ross 2012),
approval of military
interventions (Urbatsch 2009), and support for gender-equity
policies (Warner
and Steel 1999) and the conservative party (Oswald and
Powdthavee 2010).
Additionally, judges and legislators with daughters are more
likely to vote in
favor of women’s rights legislation than those with sons (Glynn
and Sen 2015;

Washington 2008).
Specific studies on the relationship between the gender of
children and paren-
tal gender-role attitudes are, however, sparse. Warner (1991)
used cross-
sectional data from individuals in Detroit and Toronto (n =
1,808) and found
that men and women with firstborn daughters were more
supportive of gender-
egalitarian attitudes than men and women with firstborn sons.
This association
was apparent for Canadian but not American men. Similarly,
Downey, Jackson,
and Powell (1994) used cross-sectional data from mothers in
Indiana (n = 228)
and found that those with firstborn sons were more likely to
support traditional
gender roles than those with firstborn daughters. These studies
relied on non-
probability, non-nationally representative, and relatively small
samples, and so
their findings are not generalizable to the broader population.
Conley and Rauscher (2013) were the first to use representative
data from the
1994 US General Social Survey (n = 1,051) and found no
evidence that having a
firstborn daughter relative to a firstborn son was associated
with parental
gender-role attitudes. However, this and the previous studies
relied on cross-
sectional data to document a process (attitude change) that is
inherently longitu-
dinal, which limited their ability to assess over-time change.
The data they used

are now also quite old. A more recent study using US panel data
from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (n = 3,145
individuals) was under-
taken by Shafer and Malhotra (2011). This found that having a
firstborn daugh-
ter (relative to having a firstborn son) slightly reduces men’s
support for
traditional gender roles, but has no effect on women’s support
for such roles.
Aims and contributions
Our paper adds to the existing literature in several ways. First,
while previous
studies have examined the relationships between parenthood,
child’s gender,
and gender-role attitudes, none of them invoked the four
complementary per-
spectives on life-course gender-attitude change that we use here
(interest-based,
exposure-based, gendered societal expectation, and backfire
effect theories).
Second, we examine the effect of child’s gender on gender-role
attitudes within
individuals over time using nationally representative Australian
panel data. This
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018

enables us to compare the same individuals before and after the
transition to
parenthood, generalize our findings to the Australian
population, and test the
generalizability of the available North American evidence in a
different socio-
cultural environment. Third, we examine gender-attitude
trajectories over time
since entry to parenthood. This allows us to provide a more
granular picture of
the ways in which attitudes change over and beyond the
transition to parent-
hood, and whether or not individuals revert to their pre-
parenthood gender-role
attitudes.
Interest-based theories of life-course attitude change
Interest-based theories of gender-attitude change rest on the
assumption that in-
dividuals’ interest structures (i.e., the goals they strive for) are
the driving force
behind their gender beliefs (Bolzendahl and Myers 2004;
Kroska and Elman
2009). It follows that, if individuals’ interest structures change,
their gender-role
attitudes should change in response. Importantly, the notion of
“interest” in this
context can be extended beyond the self to encompass
significant others. For
instance, if a man’s wife enters the workforce, he might benefit
more from gen-
der equality (e.g., his household income would be higher in the
absence of gen-
der pay gaps) and change his attitudes toward more gender-
egalitarian beliefs as
a result (Cha and Thébaud 2009).

Interest-based explanations for gender-attitude change can be
used to make
predictions about how child’s gender may affect gender-role
attitudes across the
transition to parenthood. Men and women who become parents
of a girl should
benefit more from a gender-egalitarian society in which their
daughters are trea-
ted fairly and permitted to enjoy the full range of opportunities.
For example, it
would be in the best interest of parents of daughters to live in a
society in which
intimate partner violence against women is not tolerated, or in
which there are
no gender pay gaps. For parents of sons, however, there may be
fewer perceived
advantages associated with societal gender egalitarianism. The
perpetuation of
the current status quo, in which girls and women remain
disadvantaged in a
range of life domains, may in fact result in a comparative
advantage for their
male sons. Hence, the interest structures of parents of girls
should become more
closely aligned with the goal of gender equality than the interest
structures of
parents of boys and, as a result, their gender-role attitudes
should become com-
paratively more egalitarian.
It is also possible that parental gender moderates how interest
structures oper-
ate in this context. On the one hand, out of their own personal
interest, women’s
gender-role attitudes prior to the transition to parenthood may

already reflect
that women benefit more than men from a gender-egalitarian
society. Hence, the
arrival of a firstborn daughter may be associated with a stronger
shift toward
egalitarianism in gender-role attitudes among men, for whom
their presence
would constitute a more significant addition to their interest
structures (Davis
and Greenstein 2009). On the other hand, psychological studies
on parent-child
attachment have reported stronger bonds between same-gender
parent-child
dyads (or same-gender filial preferences), whereby fathers have
a predilection for
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
their sons and women for their daughters (McHale, Crouter, and
Whiteman
2003; Raley and Bianchi 2006; Rossi and Rossi 1990). Thus,
firstborn daughters
may have a greater potential to shift mothers’ than fathers’
interest structures.
Hence, becoming a parent of a firstborn daughter may be
associated with a
stronger shift toward more gender-egalitarian attitudes among
women.

Exposure-based theories of life-course attitude change
Exposure-based theories of gender-attitude change argue that
gender beliefs are
rooted in ill-founded, stereotypical assumptions about women’s
(and men’s)
capabilities and the nature of femininity (Bolzendahl and Myers
2004). Gender-
role attitudes can thus change if individuals become exposed to
circumstances,
situations, and experiences that challenge such assumptions
(Davis and Greenstein
2009). For example, men may change their perceptions about
women being ill
suited to undertake certain jobs if they meet successful women
at the workplace
(Bolzendahl and Myers 2004).
Based on exposure-based theories, it can be argued that
individuals who
become parents of girls will likely face situations that expose
them to unfair, dis-
criminatory behavior toward females. For example, parents may
witness their
daughters being tracked into gender-typical play groups and
educational path-
ways (e.g., home economics lessons), denied access to clubs and
societies (e.g.,
sporting clubs), or being the subject of the “male gaze” and
inappropriate ste-
reotypical or sexual comments (Kane 2012). These experiences
and circum-
stances should make parents of girls more aware of structural
inequalities
unfavorable to women that emerge due to traditional gender
ideologies, and
should in turn lead them to question and reassess their own

gender-role attitudes
toward more egalitarian standpoints (see, e.g., Weitzman 2015).
Parents of sons,
on the other hand, should be exposed to few (if any) structural
factors disadvan-
taging their male children, given a societal status quo that
clearly favors men
and masculinity. Instead, parents of sons may be more likely to
encounter situa-
tions in which (hegemonic) masculinity (Connell and
Messerschmidt 2005) is ex-
alted and reinforced, such as participation in and attendance at
sporting
activities or consumption of male-typed entertainment and
media products.
Hence, exposure-based theories also lead to the prediction that
men and women
with firstborn daughters should experience less
traditionalization in their
gender-role attitudes after the transition to parenthood than men
and women
with firstborn sons.
Using exposure-based perspectives, it is also possible to
anticipate parental
gender to have a moderating role. On the one hand, women may
be more
knowledgeable about gender-based discrimination than men due
to their own
experiences prior to becoming mothers, and so the addition of
their daughters to
their lives may entail less exposure to new situations than for
men (Lee and
Conley 2016; Shafer and Malhotra 2011). In these
circumstances, one would
expect a stronger shift toward gender egalitarianism among

men. On the other
hand, parents spend more time with children of their same
gender (McHale,
Crouter, and Whiteman 2003; Raley and Bianchi 2006; Rossi
and Rossi 1990).
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Hence, women with firstborn girls may be more likely than men
with firstborn
girls to witness acts of discrimination against their daughters
that prompt them
to reconsider their gender-role attitudes (Bolzendahl and Myers
2004).
Becoming a parent of a firstborn daughter may therefore be
associated with a
comparatively stronger shift toward egalitarianism in gender-
role attitudes
among women.
Altogether, both interest- and exposure-based theories lead us to
predict that:
Hypothesis 1: Men and women with firstborn daughters will
experience
less traditionalization in their gender-role attitudes after the
transition to
parenthood than men and women with firstborn sons.

In addition, both theories suggest that parents with firstborn
girls should become
more aware of gender-based discrimination and develop
stronger interests in
gender equality as their daughters grow older and face a greater
variety of social
contexts and circumstances (Shafer and Malhotra 2011). In our
analyses, we
will test this premise empirically by estimating models that
account for time
since the birth of the first child (details below).
Gendered societal expectations
During the early years, new parents may mainly think of their
sons and daugh-
ters as dependents and receivers of care, which has implications
for how the
child’s interest is defined. In this context, parents may shift
their worldviews to
place more value on a system in which an adult is ever-present
and fully commit-
ted to providing care and emotional support to the child (Rose
and Elicker
2010). From the parental side, this process has a well-
established and strong
gender component: normative, institutionally enforced gender
scripts dictate
that it should be the child’s mother who adopts the main
caregiver role (Bianchi
and Milkie 2010; Steiner 2007). As we explain below, this
process may also be
gendered on the child’s side.
Parents draw upon normative expectations when adapting to the
require-
ments of and changes brought about by parenthood. This is

particularly appli-
cable to first-time parents, as they lack personal experiences on
which to draw.
Contemporary societal discourses around parenthood are often
deeply gendered,
as exemplified by well-established normative beliefs that
mothers are better
equipped and more capable than fathers to care for young
children. Additionally,
social pressures operate to make parents conform to these
normative expecta-
tions, with new parents being “bombarded” with advice about
parenthood and
parenting by family members, friends, acquaintances, health
professionals, and
even strangers, as well as media channels (Moseley, Freed, and
Goold 2010). In
addition, there are also deeply ingrained societal discourses
about the nature of
boyhood and girlhood. Consistent with the social construction
of femininity and
masculinity in Western societies, a common theme in these
discourses is the por-
trayal of girls as weak, fragile, passive, and dependent, and of
boys as strong,
able, active, and independent (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005;
Deaux 1985;
Lips 2001; Lorber 1995).
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018

It follows that the arrival of a firstborn daughter may elicit
stronger protective
and intensive parenting feelings among first-time parents than
the arrival of a
firstborn son. These feelings may involve more acute
perceptions that the child is
a delicate entity that requires parental attention, care, and
protection, and that it
is not appropriate for young children to attend out-of-home
childcare on a full-
time basis. This resonates with psychological research evidence
that parents treat
their daughters different than their sons in ways that reproduce
gender stereo-
types. For example, parents of daughters are more likely than
parents of sons to
discourage aggression or to display warmth toward the child,
with gender-
biased parental treatment being more prevalent among fathers
than mothers
(Raley and Bianchi 2006). The argument is also consistent with
findings from
criminology research that parents of girls experience fear of
crime more often
than parents of boys (Vozmediano et al. 2017).
Due to the gendered nature of household divisions of labor and
of govern-
ment support to parents in countries such as Australia, for most
parents the only
realistic or conceivable option to engage in intensive parenting
is for the mother
to assume the associated responsibilities (Buchler, Perales, and
Baxter 2017). In

these circumstances, changes toward stronger beliefs in
protective or intensive
parenting across the transition to parenthood actually equate to
changes toward
stronger beliefs in traditional gender divisions (Rose and
Elicker 2010).
Therefore, one could expect shifts toward more traditional
parental gender-role
attitudes with the arrival of a firstborn daughter, compared to a
firstborn son.
A corollary is that the predicted shift toward more traditional
gender-role atti-
tudes with the birth of a firstborn girl may be more pronounced
among men, for
whom “traditionalizing” is less costly—it involves changing
their views but not
their behaviors. In fact, it would be in men’s personal benefit to
traditionalize
and adopt viewpoints that depict a status quo in which they are
not responsible
for activities that are typically not highly valued—such as
routine childcare
tasks. In contrast, for most women, traditionalizing involves not
only reassessing
their attitudes, but also reconsidering how these fit with their
new roles and be-
haviors as mothers, which may lead to cognitive dissonance—a
misalignment
between one’s attitudes and behaviors that produces
psychological strain
(Baxter et al. 2015; Buchler, Perales, and Baxter 2017). Hence,
it is less costly
for men than women to “indulge” social expectations and adopt
views of girls
requiring more intensive parenting. This suggests that shifts

toward more tradi-
tional gender-role attitudes across the transition to parenthood
should be stron-
ger among men than women with firstborn daughters.
Based on this, we develop a second set of hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2: Men and women with firstborn daughters will
experience
more traditionalization in their gender-role attitudes after the
transition
to parenthood than men and women with firstborn sons.
Hypothesis 3: Men with firstborn daughters will experience
compara-
tively more traditionalization in their gender-role attitudes after
the
transition to parenthood than women with firstborn daughters.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Backfire effect theories
Hypotheses 2 and 3 are consistent with predictions from
backfire effect theories.
These argue that, when people’s personal attitudes are based on
unfounded con-
victions, encountering new situations or information
challenging their views
may actually result in people holding more strongly to their

beliefs (Nyhan and
Reifler 2010; Nyhan, Reifler, and Ubel 2013). Evidence of
backfire effects has
been found for attitudes toward the Iraq War, tax cuts, stem cell
research, health
care expenditure, or global warming (see e.g., Nyhan and
Reifler 2010; Nyhan,
Reifler, and Ubel 2013).
Backfire effect theories suggest that, if parents of firstborn
daughters become
disproportionately exposed to situations that challenge their
gender beliefs, such
exposure would lead these individuals to hold on to traditional
gender beliefs.
Additionally, these perspectives suggest that those people who
hold the most
conservative gender-role attitudes prior to parenthood would
more strongly
hold on to them post-parenthood. This suggests that, with
parenthood, the atti-
tudes of men with firstborn daughters should become
comparatively more tradi-
tional than those of women with firstborn daughters.
Table A1 provides a summary of the expectations of each of the
theories dis-
cussed. While our four theoretical perspectives are presented
separately, it must
be noted that in practice there are significant overlaps between
them. For exam-
ple, consistent with exposure-based theories, interest-based
theories assume
awareness and exposure to discriminatory practices against
girls, with interest
being structured around avoidance of such practices and their

potential conse-
quences on female daughters. Likewise, backfire effect theories
also assume the
existence of exposure to such situations, with the difference
being that under this
framework they are expected to elicit different psychological
reactions in par-
ents. Also, the different perspectives bear diverging temporal
implications:
interest-based, exposure-based, and backfire effect theories
assume a progressive
shift toward more traditional parental gender ideologies as
children age and par-
ents encounter new situations that challenge their gender
attitudes, while gen-
dered societal expectations theory assumes more immediate and
perhaps more
fleeting effects of childbirth on parental attitudes.
The Australian context
The available research on child’s gender and parental gender-
role attitudes has,
to our knowledge, exclusively relied on data from the United
States and one
Canadian city. An innovative aspect of our paper is our focus on
a different
country: Australia. Expanding the evidence base beyond the
United States is
important to ascertain the generalizability of the available
findings, and to begin
to tease out how institutional contexts may matter. Doing so,
however, poses
questions about whether or not the theoretical mechanisms
outlined before oper-
ate similarly or differently across countries, and specifically
between the United

States (where most research on this topic has been conducted)
and Australia
(where our data come from).
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Interest- and exposure-based theories should operate more
strongly in societal
contexts in which being female is associated with a deeper
degree of disadvan-
tage. In this regard, the Australian and US contexts are very
similar. For
instance, Australia and the United States rank 45th and 46th
(out of 144 coun-
tries) in the 2016 Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic
Forum 2016).
Therefore, according to interest- and exposure-based theories,
we should expect
similar relationships between child’s gender and parental
gender-role attitudes in
Australia and the United States.
The gendered societal expectations argument should operate
more strongly in
societies in which intensive parenting ideologies prevail, and in
which gender
stereotypes remain deeply ingrained. While, to our knowledge,
there is no cross-
national comparative evidence of (dis)similarities in gender

stereotyping in
Australia and the United States, there is evidence to suggest
that intensive parent-
ing ideologies are more widespread in Australia than the United
States. For exam-
ple, both working and non-working adults in Australia spend a
greater share of
their time on care activities than their US counterparts (OECD
2016a). In addi-
tion, Australia features a more generous, mandated paid
parental leave scheme:
women are entitled to 18 weeks of paid maternity leave paid at
a 42 percent pay-
ment rate (equivalent to 7.6 weeks of full-time pay), while—
since 2013—men are
entitled to two weeks of paid paternity leave at the same rate
(equivalent to 0.8
weeks of full-time pay) (Buchler, Perales, and Baxter 2017).
This imbalance in
leave entitlements between Australian men and women, together
with higher
rates in maternal time out of employment and part-time work
rates (Baxter et al.
2015), exemplifies deep-rooted normative expectations in
Australia of mothers as
caregivers. In the United States, however, neither mothers nor
fathers are entitled
to paid parental leave (OECD 2016b). The US Family and
Medical Leave Act
provides eligible employees with 12 weeks of annual leave for
family/medical rea-
sons, but this is not mandated to be paid leave. Taken together,
these aspects sug-
gest that in Australia, more than in the United States, normative
practices and
features of the institutional environment place a larger premium

on parental
childcare, with a strong expectation that the bulk of it will be
undertaken by
mothers rather than fathers. It follows that, if the gendered
societal expectations
hypothesis is correct, we should expect parental gender-role
attitudes (and espe-
cially paternal gender-role attitudes) to move toward
comparatively more tradi-
tional standpoints in Australia than in the United States.
Methodology
Dataset and sample selection
We examine whether the gender of firstborn children affects the
rate of change in
parental gender-role attitudes across the transition to
parenthood. To test this, we
use data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in
Australia
(HILDA) Survey, a household panel survey that tracks
individuals living in the
same households in Australia for the 2001 to 2015 period and is
largely repre-
sentative of the Australian population in 2001 (Summerfield et
al. 2016). This is
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
one of the largest and most respected panel surveys at a global

scale, and is part
of the Cross-National Equivalent File of household panels. Most
of the HILDA
Survey data are collected via computer-assisted face-to-face
interviews taking
place at the respondents’ households, with some information
(including that on
gender attitudes) being completed privately by respondents via
a self-complete
instrument. This is most often handed over to the interviewer
prior to her/his
departure, although some respondents opt to mail it afterward.
Attrition rates in
the HILDA Survey are remarkably low for international
standards. For instance,
only around 5 percent of previous-wave respondents left the
survey between its
two most recent sweeps (14 and 15). Unlike in most cohort
studies, individuals
can enter household panels after the initial sweep. In the
HILDA Survey, new in-
dividuals can join the panel if they live in participating
households and become
15 years of age, or if they begin sharing a residence with a
sample member. If a
new panel member marries or has a child with an existing
sample member, that
panel member would also be followed over time. Hence, by
design, not all indi-
viduals in the HILDA Survey are observed the same number of
times for reasons
other than panel attrition.
We use data from the five HILDA Survey waves containing
information on
gender-role attitudes: wave one (2001), wave five (2005), wave

eight (2008),
wave 11 (2011), and wave 15 (2015). We consider only person-
year observa-
tions in these waves in which respondents were aged between 18
and 50 years,
inclusive (to focus on prime childbearing and childrearing ages)
(n = 43,388).
We then exclude 6,379 person-year observations from
respondents who had
missing data on model variables. Of these, a vast majority (over
99 percent)
were dropped due to missing information on gender-role
attitudes, as the self-
complete questionnaire in which this is collected incurs higher
non-response. We
exclude also 7,096 person-year observations from respondents
who were only
observed once after applying the previous exclusion criteria,
because we fit
fixed-effect panel regression models that require at least two
observations per
individual (see details below). We refrain from imputing
missing information at
the item level because most information is missing on the
outcome variable, and
because of the absence of widely accepted methods to do so in a
panel environ-
ment. Our final analytical sample comprises 29,918 person-year
observations
from 9,583 individuals. Within this sample, 3,980 individuals
were observed
twice over the life of the panel, 2,045 individuals were observed
three times,
1,967 individuals were observed four times, and 1,590
individuals were
observed all five times. This, however, does not constitute an

issue for our esti-
mation, as our fixed-effects models can handle unbalanced data.
Of note, we do not exclude individuals who were parents when
the HILDA
Survey commenced (2001) or who were parents and entered the
study later on
(e.g., by joining a participating household). Because we fit
fixed-effects models
that only use within-individual over-time changes in the
explanatory variables to
estimate their model coefficients (details below), these
individuals do not con-
tribute to estimation of the model parameters on the transition
to parenthood
(they are always observed in the category of “parents”).
Similarly, childless indi-
viduals who enter the study and are never observed to have a
child also do not
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
contribute to the estimation of the parenthood effects in our
fixed-effects models
(they are always observed in the category of “non-parents”).
However, retaining
these two types of individuals in the sample is preferable to
excluding them, as
they contribute to estimation of other model variables (e.g., age

or education) on
which they do experience change over time. This approach is
customary in stud-
ies using fixed-effects models; see for example Baxter et al.
(2015).
Outcome variable: Gender-role attitudes
Following Baxter et al. (2015), we operationalize gender-role
attitudes using a
time-varying variable summarizing respondents’ degree of
agreement with seven
separate statements (see table A2). Response options range from
(1) “strongly
agree” to (7) “strongly disagree,” and where necessary they
were recoded so
that high values always represent more traditional views about
gender roles. We
construct an additive scale by summing the scores of the seven
items. For ease of
interpretation, we rescale the resulting variable so that it ranges
from 0 (most
egalitarian gender attitudes) to 100 (most traditional gender
attitudes). While
the Cronbach’s alpha score for this scale is only moderate (0.6),
factor analyses
reveal that only one factor had an Eigenvalue over 1 (1.4), all
items loaded posi-
tively on this factor, and the second-highest Eigenvalue among
factors was very
low (0.4). We take this as evidence of unidimensionality.
Key explanatory variables: The transition to parenthood
In our HILDA Survey sample, 1,430 men and 1,615 women
become parents for
the first time. Of these, 691 men and 790 women have a
firstborn son, and 739

men and 825 women have a firstborn daughter. As is common
practice in studies
of the effects of children’s gender on parental and family
outcomes, we focus exclu-
sively on first births. This minimizes selection bias due to
“endogenous stopping
rules” arising from differential fertility choices and preferences
for children of
either gender (Dahl and Moretti 2008). In addition, a large body
of research has
identified first births as a distinct and critical life-course
transition (Baxter et al.
2015). We do not consider cases in which first births were twins
(n = 136 pairs).
To reassess the relationship between the transition to
parenthood and gender-
role attitudes using our unique dataset, we first derive a “base”
parenthood indica-
tor. This is a time-varying dummy variable taking the value one
if the respondent
has been observed to have a firstborn child during the life of the
panel, and the
value zero otherwise. To distinguish by parental gender, we
subsequently split this
“base” parenthood variable into two variables: “father” is a
dummy variable tak-
ing the value one if the respondent (i) is male, and (ii) has been
observed to have
his firstborn child during the life of the panel, and the value
zero otherwise; and
“mother” is a dummy variable taking the value one if the
respondent (i) is female,
and (ii) has been observed to have her firstborn child during the
life of the panel,
and the value zero otherwise.

To distinguish by child’s gender, we then split the “base”
parenthood variable
into two new variables: “daughter” is a dummy variable taking
the value one if
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
the respondent (i) has been observed to have a firstborn child
during the life of
the panel, and (ii) has a firstborn girl, and the value zero
otherwise; and “son” is
a dummy variable taking the value one if the respondent (i) has
been observed to
have a firstborn child during the life of the panel, and (ii) has a
firstborn boy,
and the value zero otherwise.
The independent variables in our main model combine
information from the
previous parenthood variables on the birth of the first child, the
gender of the
first child, and the gender of the parents into four parent-child
gender variables:
“male parent of daughter” is a dummy variable taking the value
one if the
respondent (i) is male, (ii) has been observed to have his
firstborn child during
the life of the panel, and (iii) has a firstborn girl; and “female

parent of daugh-
ter” is a dummy variable taking the value one if the respondent
(i) is female, (ii)
has been observed to have her firstborn child during the life of
the panel, and
(iii) has a firstborn girl. In addition, “male parent of son” is a
dummy variable
taking the value one if the respondent (i) is male, (ii) has been
observed to have
his firstborn child during the life of the panel, and (iii) has a
firstborn boy; and
“female parent of son,” is a dummy variable taking the value
one if the respon-
dent (i) is female, (ii) has been observed to have her firstborn
child during the life
of the panel, and (iii) has a firstborn boy.
Note that an individual who does not satisfy the criteria for a
given parent-
hood variable would be assigned a score of zero in all survey
waves. Since we
use fixed-effects models estimated using change over time (see
details below),
such individuals would not contribute to the estimation of the
regression coeffi-
cients on that variable.
Control variables
In our multivariate panel regression models described below, we
control for a
range of variables that may confound the associations between
parenthood,
child’s gender, and gender-role attitudes. These variables are
time-varying, mea-
sured at the individual level, and are based on those used in
previous studies in

this field. We control for a set of dummy variables capturing
marital status [mar-
ried/in a de facto relationship/divorced, separated, or
widowed/single (never
married)], as marital status has been shown to be associated
with gender-role at-
titudes—with married individuals displaying comparatively
traditional views
(Brewster and Padavic 2000). Education is associated with
individuals holding
more egalitarian gender attitudes (Cunningham et al. 2005), so
we control for a
set of dummy variables capturing respondents’ highest
education qualification
(university degree or higher/vocational education certificate or
equivalent/sec-
ondary education/lower than secondary education). We include
a control vari-
able for religiosity, as this has recurrently been linked to more
traditional gender
attitudes (see, e.g., Mikołajczak and Pietrzak 2014). Our
measure of religiosity
is based on individuals’ responses to a question asking “On a
scale from 0 to 10,
how important is religion in your life?.” Finally, we control for
individuals’ age
at last birthday (expressed in years) and its square, as
substantial literature docu-
ments trends in gender-role attitudes over the life course (see
e.g., Scott, Alwin,
abstract/97/1/251/4938482

on 11 August 2018
and Braun 1996). We explicitly refrain from adjusting for
factors that may
themselves be a consequence of shifts in gender-role attitudes
across the trans-
ition to parenthood, such as changes in employment status and
subsequent
births. This is because we are interested in documenting the
“base” parenthood
effect, rather than identifying the intervening mechanisms that
produce it. In
addition, while second children may strengthen traditional
gender attitudes, they
are naturally posterior to parenthood on the causal chain, can
only be experi-
enced by parents, and may be correlated with the gender of the
first child.
Hence, adding variables capturing employment status and
higher-order births to
the models can be seen as an instance of “over controlling” and
would result in
artificially downward-biased estimates of the parenthood
effects. Nevertheless,
results including variables capturing these aspects are available
from the authors
upon request. Since we fit fixed-effects regression models, we
need not (and can-
not) adjust for time-constant factors such as socio-economic,
ethnic, or migrant
background. Table 1 shows means and standard deviations for
model variables.
Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations for Model Variables,

HILDA Survey (Australia)
Women Men
Mean/% SD Mean/% SD
Gender-role attitudes (0–100) 39.20 15.33 43.74 14.29
Parenthood
Daughter 9% 9%
Son 8% 8%
Control variables
Marital status
Married 48% 46%
De facto relationship 19% 19%
Divorced, separated, widowed 8% 5%
Single 25% 30%
Highest education qualification
University degree or higher 30% 24%
Vocational education certificate or equivalent 26% 36%
Secondary education 21% 20%
Lower than secondary education 23% 20%

Religiosity (0–10) 3.20 3.48 2.43 3.21
Religion-missing flag 14% 16%
Age in years 34.33 9.51 34.34 9.56
Years since first birth* 4.27 3.64 4.28 3.64
Note: HILDA Survey data. n (observations) = 29,918; n
(individuals) = 9,583. * Only for individuals
who experienced a first birth over the life of the panel.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Modelling strategy: Fixed-effects panel regression models
We model the relationships of interest using fixed-effects
models. These are esti-
mated by regressing deviations from individuals’ person-means
in the dependent
variable on deviations from their person-means in the
independent variables
(Allison 2009). The main model examines the effect of
parenthood on gender-
role attitudes for each of our “parent-child gender” variables:
β γ ε ε( − ) = ( − ) + ( − ̅ ) +( − ̅ ) ( )X XGRA GRA PCG PCG
1it i it i it i it i
where i and t denote individual and time, GRA stands for

gender-role attitudes,
PCG is a set of variables representing the four different parent-
child gender com-
binations, X is a vector of time-varying control variables, β and
γ are model
coefficients, and ε is a random error term. It is important to
note that, while
fixed-effects models cannot incorporate time-constant variables
(such as gender),
they can incorporate interactions between time-constant
variables and time-
varying variables (see, e.g., Allison 2009, 37–38). Our variables
capturing the in-
teractions between parenthood (time-varying), parent’s gender
(time-constant),
and child’s gender (time-constant) fall under this banner.
An extension to the previous model allows us to examine
gender-role attitude
trajectories for each of the different parent-child gender
variables as firstborn
children age. This is useful to examine whether or not, as hinted
by interest- and
(especially) exposure-based theories, parents become more
aware of structural
discrimination against girls as their daughters grow older, and
consequently
change their gender attitudes at a faster rate as time since birth
elapses. To do
so, we interact each of the parent-child gender variables with a
variable captur-
ing the number of years since the first birth (YSB):
β θ γ ε ε
( − ) =

( − ) + ( − ) ∗ ( − ) +( − ) +( − )
( )
X X
GRA GRA
PCG PCG PCG PCG YSB YSB
2
it i
it i it i it i it i it i
One could think of the θ coefficients in this model as a version
of the growth
parameter(s) estimated using “growth models,” as they measure
trajectories in
gender-role attitudes since parenthood. However, unlike those
from traditional
growth models, our coefficients are estimated in a fixed-effects
rather than a
random-effects framework, and so they are more robust to
omitted-variable bias
due to time-constant unobserved heterogeneity (Allison 2009).
In sensitivity
analyses, we tested for non-linear effects in the years since first
birth variable,
but found no evidence of these.
We useWald tests to examine whether parenthood impacts
differently for individuals falling into the different categories of
the variables cap-
turing parental gender (“father,” “mother”), child’s gender

(“daughter,” “son”),
and parent-child gender dyads (“male parent of son,” “male
parent of daughter,”
“female parent of son,” and “female parent of daughter”).
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Results
Table 2 presents the results of our fixed-effects models of
gender-role attitudes.
Positive coefficients on the independent variables indicate that
the variables are
associated with more traditional gender-role attitudes, whereas
negative coeffi-
cients on the explanatory variables indicate that the variables
are associated
with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes. Across all models,
the coefficients
on the parenthood variables give the average difference in
support for traditional
gender-role attitudes across all observations before and all
observations after the
experience of parenthood for those individuals who become
parents over the life
of the panel, all else being equal.
Model 1 estimates the effect on gender-role attitudes of the
“base” parent-
hood measure. On a scale from 0 to 100, the transition to

parenthood is associ-
ated with an increase of 1.91 units (p < 0.001) in the degree of
traditionalism in
individuals’ gender-role attitudes. Model 2 provides evidence
on whether and
how this parenthood effect is moderated by parental gender.
Becoming a parent
leads to an increase in support for traditional gender-role
attitudes of 2.5 units
(p < 0.001) among men and 1.39 units (p < 0.001) among
women. This gender
difference, whereby men traditionalize more than women upon
the experience
of parenthood, is statistically significant in Wald tests (p <
0.05). These results
are consistent with previous studies of changes in gender-role
attitudes across
the transition to parenthood (see, e.g., Baxter et al. 2015;
Evertsson 2013;
Kroska and Elman 2009; Schober and Scott 2012).
Model 3 presents the results of an initial model examining
moderation in the
effect of parenthood on gender-role attitudes by child’s gender.
In this model,
parental gender is not (yet) taken into account. Results indicate
that the gender-
role attitudes of individuals who become parents of firstborn
daughters become
more traditional across the transition to parenthood (β = 2.41, p
< 0.001), and
so do the gender-role attitudes of individuals who become
parents of firstborn
sons (β = 1.39, p < 0.001). Therefore, having a firstborn
daughter seems to be
more strongly associated with a traditionalization of gender-role

attitudes than
having a firstborn son, with this difference being statistically
significant in a
Wald test (p = 0.05). This pattern of results is inconsistent with
Hypothesis 1
(based on interest-/exposure-based theories), but consistent with
Hypothesis 2
(based on gendered societal expectations and backfire effect
theories).
Model 4 further considers how different permutations of
parental and child’s
gender affect gender-role attitudes. The coefficients on all of
the parent-child gen-
der variables are positive and statistically significant, which
suggests shifts toward
more traditional gender-role attitudes irrespective of parental
and child’s gender.
Having a firstborn daughter is associated with an increase in
support for tradi-
tional gender-role attitudes of 3.2 units (p < 0.001) among men
and 1.7 units
(p < 0.01) among women. This gender difference, whereby men
become more tra-
ditional than women upon the arrival of a firstborn girl, is
statistically significant
(p < 0.05). This is consistent with Hypothesis 3. Having a
firstborn son is associ-
ated with an increase in support for traditional gender-role
attitudes of 1.7 units
(p < 0.01) among men and 1.06 units (p < 0.05) among women,
with the gender

abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Table 2. Predictors of Gender-Role Attitudes, Fixed-Effects
Models, HILDA Survey (Australia)
Model
1 2 3 4 5
Effect of the transition to parenthood for…
All parents 1.91***
Male parent 2.50***
Female parent 1.39***
Parent of daughter 2.41***
Parent of son 1.39***
Female parent of daughter 1.70** 1.93***
Male parent of daughter 3.20*** 3.60***
Female parent of son 1.06* 1.68**
Male parent of son 1.75** 1.74**
Effect of years since parenthood for…
Female parent of daughter −0.10
Male parent of daughter −0.15
Female parent of son −0.21**

Male parent of son −0.03
Marital status (ref. married)
De facto relationship −0.53 −0.52 −0.53 −0.53 −0.50
Divorced, separated, widowed −0.59 −0.58 −0.59 −0.57 −0.54
Single −0.45 −0.42 −0.44 −0.42 −0.28
266
SocialForces
97(1)
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Highest educ. qualification (ref. secondary educ.)
University degree or higher −1.93*** −1.93*** −1.93***
−1.93*** −2.04***
Vocational educ. certificate or equivalent −0.75 −0.76 −0.76
−0.77 −0.82
Lower than secondary education −0.66 −0.67 −0.66 −0.68 −0.67
Religiosity 0.18*** 0.18*** 0.18*** 0.18*** 0.19***
Age −0.54*** −0.53*** −0.54*** −0.53*** −0.49***
Age2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Constant 57.82*** 57.67*** 57.82*** 57.65*** 56.55***

R2 (within) 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04
N (observations) 29,918 29,918 29,918 29,918 29,918
N (individuals) 9,583 9,583 9,583 9,583 9,583
Wald tests (p values)
βMother = βFather 0.03
βDaughter = βSon 0.05
βMother of daughter = βFather of daughter 0.04 0.04
βMother of son = βFather of son 0.35 0.94
βMother of daughter = βMother of son 0.36 0.76
βFather of daughter = βFather of son 0.05 0.03
βMother of daughter, trajectory = βFather of daughter,
trajectory 0.69
βMother of son, trajectory = βFather of son, trajectory 0.13
βMother of daughter, trajectory = βMother of son, trajectory
0.33
βMother of daughter, trajectory = βFather of son, trajectory
0.35
Note: Fixed-effects models using HILDA Survey data. Higher
values represent more traditional gender-role attitudes. Models
also control for missing
information on religion. Significance levels: *** p < 0.001 ** p
< 0.01 * p < 0.05
Parenthood,GenderAttitudes,and
Child
’s
Gender

267
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
difference not being statistically significant (p > 0.05). Of
particular interest is
whether having a daughter relative to having a son has a
differential effect on atti-
tude shifts across the transition to parenthood. For men, we find
evidence that
having a firstborn daughter (β = 3.2) is associated with a
significantly larger
increase in support for traditional gender-role attitudes than
having a firstborn
son (β = 1.75) (p = 0.05). For women, there are no statistically
significant differ-
ences (p > 0.05) in the effects of having a firstborn daughter (β
= 1.7) and having
a firstborn son (β = 1.06).
Model 5 examines men’s and women’s gender-role attitude
trajectories after
the birth of their first child. In discussing the results of this
model, we focus on
the estimated coefficients on the interactions between each of
the parent-child
gender variables and the variable capturing the number of years
since the birth
of the first child. These coefficients give the expected change in
parental gender-
role attitudes associated with an additional year since the

transition to parent-
hood, ceteris paribus. The effects are estimated separately for
individuals in each
of our four parent-child gender groups to allow for
heterogeneity in trends.
For female and male parents of firstborn daughters as well as
for male parents
of firstborn sons, the number of years after the birth of the
firstborn child is not sta-
tistically related to gender-role attitudes (p > 0.05). For female
parents of firstborn
sons, however, the model suggests a trend toward less
traditional gender attitudes
over time (β = −0.21, p < 0.01). When this is considered in
conjunction with the
estimated effect of the transition to parenthood for this
subgroup (β = 1.68, p <
0.001), this suggests that, on average, mothers of firstborn sons
return to their pre-
parenthood gender-role attitudes when their children turn eight
years of age (1.68/
0.21 = 8). Nevertheless, results from Wald tests reveal that the
gender-attitude tra-
jectories for the different child-parent gender groups are not
statistically different
from each other. Altogether, these analyses yield virtually no
evidence of trends
toward more or less egalitarian gender attitudes after
parenthood.
Discussion & Conclusion
Our base results resemble those from previous studies:
becoming a parent shifts
individuals’ gender-role attitudes toward more traditional
views, with the effect

being larger among men than women (Baxter et al. 2015;
Evertsson 2013;
Kroska and Elman 2009; Schober and Scott 2012). This finding
is consistent
with Australian and international scholarship demonstrating that
children are
often a turning point in how couples distribute and rationalize
household labor:
the arrival of children (and particularly the first child) is
associated with the
emergence of more traditional gender divisions (Baxter, Hewitt,
and Haynes
2008; Perales, Baxter, and Tai 2015; Pollmann-Schult 2015).
The traditionaliz-
ing effect of parenthood on gender-role attitudes is apparent, to
different degrees,
across all four permutations of parental and child’s gender. This
finding extends
the previous evidence base by demonstrating that parenthood is
associated with
a shift toward more traditional gender beliefs irrespective of the
gender of first-
born children. When considered collectively, the magnitude of
the parenthood ef-
fects is moderate to large, equivalent to 7 to 25 percent of the
standard deviation
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018

in the gender-role attitude scale. Such effects are also
seemingly larger than those
of other variables, including education level and partnership
status.
Using interest-based and exposure-based theories of within-
individual attitude
change, we hypothesized that individuals with firstborn
daughters would experi-
ence less traditionalization in their gender-role attitudes across
the transition to
parenthood than individuals with firstborn sons (Hypothesis 1).
Our results pro-
vided no support for this proposition. Instead, they yielded
evidence in favor of
the predictions of gendered societal expectations and backfire
effect theories: in-
dividuals with firstborn daughters experienced more
traditionalization in their
gender-role attitudes after the transition to parenthood than
those with firstborn
sons (Hypothesis 2). This pattern of results was apparent when
considering male
and female parents separately, although the pre-/post-
parenthood difference in
gender-role attitudes was only statistically significant among
men. The latter
constitutes evidence in favor of Hypothesis 3.
The pattern of results in our Australian national sample is
therefore inconsis-
tent with that reported by Shafer and Malhotra (2011), the only
other longitudi-
nal study available on this topic. Their results indicated that, in
one US cohort,
having a daughter reduced men’s support for traditional gender

roles slightly,
and did not affect women’s support for such roles. However, the
effect on men
reported by Shafer and Malhotra was small in magnitude (about
11 percent of
the variable’s standard deviation) and only marginally
statistically significant
(p = 0.09). While it is not possible to identify the reasons
behind these differ-
ences in results, contextual and design differences across
studies may have con-
tributed to these. For example, the sample in Shafer and
Malhotra (2011)
represents a single cohort from the United States born between
1958 and 1965
and interviewed between 1979 and 2004, whereas our sample
comprises multi-
ple cohorts from Australia born between 1955 and 1993 and
interviewed
between 2001 and 2015. It is thus possible that their results
apply to a bygone
time in which prevailing societal-level gender attitudes and
arrangements in the
United States were comparatively more traditional, and the
arrival of a firstborn
girl would trigger new lived experiences among first-time
fathers.
Our finding that daughters shift parents’ (and particularly
fathers’) gender-
role attitudes toward less egalitarian standpoints aligns instead
with predictions
based on gendered societal expectations, which poses the
question of why these
may operate comparatively strongly in contemporary Australia.
As previously

hinted, this pattern of results is highly consistent with the idea
that the
Australian institutional context, more than that in the United
States, places
importance on parental (and particularly maternal) childcare.
Similar to Shafer and Malhotra (2011) for the United States, our
analyses of
post-parenthood gender-attitude trajectories using Australian
data were not highly
patterned. All but one of the estimated trajectories for the
different parent-child
gender combinations and all of the differences in trajectories
across subgroups
were statistically insignificant. For mothers of firstborn sons,
their attitudes were
found to revert to pre-parenthood levels after their children
turned eight years of
age. For the remaining parent-child gender subgroups, the
finding of no trends in
parental gender-role attitudes after birth suggests that attitude
shifts accompanying
the transition to parenthood are long-lasting: individuals’
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
generally do not revert back to their pre-birth levels as time
elapses, at least to the

extent that we can observe. If parents become progressively
more exposed to cir-
cumstances that challenge their gender attitudes as children
grow older, these re-
sults suggest that such exposure is unlikely to be a driver of
parental shifts in
gender attitudes.
Our analyses are, however, not without shortcomings. First, the
alpha score
denoting internal consistency for our attitude scale is only
moderate (0.60),
which may have introduced some statistical noise and effect
attenuation in our
estimates. However, our parameters of interest remain moderate
to large in mag-
nitude when evaluated against the standard deviation of the
outcome variable
(they account for 7 to 25 percent of it) and precisely estimated,
which adds confi-
dence to our findings. Second, the gender-attitude items in the
HILDA Survey
spread “only” over 15 years (2001–2015). Hence, individuals
who become par-
ents over the life of the survey can only be subsequently tracked
for one to 14
years. This means that we can only observe changes in their
post-parenthood at-
titudes for a limited amount of time, and that individuals who
become parents
early in the observation window are observed for longer spells
of time. In addi-
tion, it is likely that the influence of sons and daughters in
shifting parental
gender-role attitudes becomes more pronounced when children
are older than

14 years (McHale, Crouter, and Whiteman 2003). For example,
concerns about
equal access to educational opportunities, gender pay gaps, sex
life, and domes-
tic violence may not influence parents’ beliefs until their sons
and daughters are
old enough to have encountered these (Weitzman 2015).
It follows that future studies in this area should aim to leverage
longer panel
datasets that track parents’ attitudes as their children move into
adolescence and
young adulthood. Such data may not currently exist, and so
pursuing these
methodological refinements may require the collection and
maturation of new
fit-for-purpose datasets. Another important avenue for further
research consists
of identifying whether the estimated effects of parent-child
gender dyads on
gender-role attitudes operate consistently across social strata
(Lee and Conley
2016). For example, it is possible that the moderating effect of
child’s gender is
stronger among lowly than highly educated parents, or
individuals who held
comparatively less traditional gender attitudes prior to
parenthood. Third, the
differences in the results we find for Australia and those
previously reported for
the United States suggest that cross-national differences in
cultural and institu-
tional regimes may shape the processes under consideration.
Hence, future stud-
ies should also examine the moderating effect of child’s gender
on parental

gender-role attitudes in other country contexts.
More broadly, our findings illustrate the need for further studies
that follow a
life-course approach to the study of gender-attitude change. The
principle of “linked
lives” hints at the need to move away from a focus on how
personal circumstances
and dynamics shape individual gender-role attitudes, and into
the role played by
social contexts (in our application, family context). We show
that there are spillover
effects across family members, whereby a personal trait of
children (their gender) in-
fluences the gender attitudes of their parents. Taking a broader
view, it is likely that
parents and children act as mutual co-influencers on each
other’s worldviews as
their lives unfold. Future research applying a life-course
perspective to the analysis
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
of gender-attitude change should therefore pay attention to how
the attitudes of
parents and children evolve in response not only to their own
life events and transi-
tions, but also in response to the life experiences of one
another.

Altogether, our findings indicate that in Australia a child’s
gender makes a dif-
ference to how parents experience and react to parenthood, with
daughters
being raised in more traditionalizing households. This process
may be problem-
atic if it means that Australian girls are raised in family
environments in which
parents are less likely to appreciate and invest in their talents,
for example, by
tracking them into gender-typical educational pathways. In this
scenario, the
comparatively higher rates of gender-role traditionalization
observed for parents
of firstborn girls would result in their daughters encountering
obstacles that limit
their life chances not only outside but also within the family
home beginning
early in their life course, even if their parents are well
intentioned. Such a situa-
tion may constitute an important factor hampering much needed
progress
toward gender equality in Australia.
Appendix
Table A1. Summary of Theoretical Predictions
Theory/
Predictions
Main effect of having a daughter vs.
having a son Differences by parental gender
Interest-

based
theories
The interest structures of parents of
daughters shift so that they more strongly
support a gender-egalitarian society:
Less traditionalization in the gender-role
attitudes of parents of daughters
(Hypothesis 1)
Women already benefit from gender
equality prior to having a daughter:
Stronger effect among men
Women feel more attached to their
daughters:
Stronger effect among women
Exposure-
based
theories
Exposure to discriminatory behavior
against daughters will make parents
reassess their gender attitudes:
attitudes of parents of daughters
(Hypothesis 1)
Women are already knowledgeable
about gender-based discrimination
prior to parenthood:
Women spend more time with their
daughters and are more likely to
witness gender discrimination:
Stronger effect among women

Gendered
societal
expectations
The social construction of femininity leads
parents to more strongly support intensive
parenting of daughters:
attitudes of parents of sons (Hypothesis 2)
It is less costly for men to adhere to
normative gender scripts about
intensive parenting of daughters:
(Hypothesis 3)
Backfire
effect
theories
People hold more feverously on to their
attitudes when presented with
information challenging them:
attitudes of parents of sons (Hypothesis 2)
Men’s gender-role attitudes are more
conservative and thus more prone to
“backfire effects”:
(Hypothesis 3)

abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
About the Authors
Francisco (Paco) Perales is Senior Research Fellow and ARC
DECRA Fellow at
the Life Course Centre, Institute for Social Science Research
(University of
Queensland). His research focuses on understanding socio-
economic inequalities
by gender and sexual identity and relies on longitudinal and
life-course ap-
proaches. His recent work has been published in outlets such as
Social Forces,
Journal of Marriage and Family, Sex Roles, European
Sociological Review,
Work, Employment & Society, and Social Science Research.
Yara Jarallah is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Life
Course Centre,
Institute for Social Science Research (University of
Queensland). Her research in-
vestigates changes in the family, including fertility and union
formation, in light
of political conflict and structural forces of control in the Arab
world. She also
works on other research fields, including gender-role attitudes,
union dissolution
and childbearing, adolescent health and well-being, women’s
health and well-
being, domestic labor, and forced migration.
Janeen Baxter is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Life

Course
Centre, Institute for Social Science Research (University of
Queensland). She has
research interests in gender inequality, unpaid work, social
disadvantage, well-
being, and life-course and longitudinal research. She has
published widely in
these areas, including Negotiating the Life Course: Stability and
Change in Life
Pathways (Springer, 2013).
Table A2. Individual Items Used to Measure Gender-Role
Attitudes
No. Statement
Reverse-
coded
1 “Many working mothers seem to care more about being
successful at
work than meeting the needs of their children”
No
2 “If both partners in a couple work, they should share equally
in the
housework and care of children”
Yes
3 “Whatever career a woman may have, her most important role
in life
is still that of being a mother”
No

4 “Mothers who don’t really need the money shouldn’t work”
No
5 “Children do just as well if the mother earns the money and
the
father cares for the home and the children”
Yes
6 “As long as the care is good, it is fine for children under 3
years of
age to be placed in childcare all day for 5 days a week”
Yes
7 “A working mother can establish just as good a relationship
with her
children as a mother who does not work for pay”
Yes
Note: HILDA Survey.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
References
Allison, Paul. 2009. Fixed Effects Regression Models. London:
Sage.
Baxter, Janeen, Sandra Buchler, Francisco Perales, and Mark

Western. 2015. “A Life-Changing Event:
First Births and Men’s and Women’s Attitudes to Mothering and
Gender Divisions of Labor.” Social
Forces 93(3):989–1014.
Baxter, Janeen, Belinda Hewitt, and Michele Haynes. 2008.
“Life Course Transitions and Housework:
Marriage, Parenthood, and Time on Housework.” Journal of
Marriage and Family 70(2):259–72.
Bianchi, Suzanne, and Melissa Milkie. 2010. “Work and Family
Research in the First Decade of the 21st
Century.” Journal of Marriage and Family 72(3):705–25.
Bolzendahl, Catherine, and Daniel Myers. 2004. “Feminist
Attitudes and Support for Gender Equality:
Opinion Change in Women and Men, 1974–1998.” Social Forces
83(2):759–89.
Brewster, Karin, and Irene Padavic. 2000. “Change in Gender-
Ideology, 1977–1996: The Contributions of
Intracohort Change and Population Turnover.” Journal of
Marriage and Family 62(2):477–87.
Buchler, Sandra, Francisco Perales, and Janeen Baxter. 2017.
“Does Parenthood Change Attitudes to
Fathering? Evidence from Australia and Britain.” Sex Roles 77
(9–10):663–675.
Cha, Youngjoo, and Sarah Thébaud. 2009. “Labor Markets,
Breadwinning, and Beliefs: How Economic
Context Shapes Men’s Gender Ideology.” Gender and Society
23(2):215–43.
Conley, Dalton, and Emily Rauscher. 2013. “The Effect of

Daughters on Partisanship and Social Attitudes
toward Women.” Sociological Forum 28(4):700–718.
Connell, R.W., and James Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic
Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.”
Gender and Society 19(6):829–59.
Cunningham, Mick, Ann Beutel, Jennifer Barber, and Arland
Thornton. 2005. “Reciprocal Relationship
between Attitudes about Gender and Social Contexts during
Young Adulthood.” Social Science
Research 34(4):862–92.
Dahl, Michael, Cristian Dezso, and David Ross. 2012.
“Fatherhood and Managerial Style: How a Male
CEO’s Children Affect the Wages of His Employees.”
Administrative Science Quarterly 57(4):1–25.
Dahl, Gordon, and Enrico Moretti. 2008. “The Demand for
Sons.” Review of Economic Studies 75:
1085–1120.
Danigelis, Nicholas, Melissa Hardy, and Stephen Cutler. 2007.
“Population Aging, Intracohort Aging, and
Socio-Political Attitudes.” American Sociological Review
72(5):812–30.
Davis, Shannon, and Theodore Greenstein. 2009. “Gender
Ideology: Components, Predictors, and
Consequences.” Annual Review of Sociology 35:87–105.
Deaux, Kay. 1985. “Sex and Gender.” Annual Review of
Psychology 36:49–81.
Downey, Douglas, Pamela Jackson, and Brian Powell. 1994.
“Sons versus Daughters: Sex Composition of

Children and Maternal Views on Socialization.” Sociological
Quarterly 35(1):33–50.
Evertsson, Marie. 2013. “The Importance of Work: Changing
Work Commitment Following the Transition
to Motherhood.” Acta Sociologica 56(2):139–53.
Freese, Jeremy, and Brian Powell. 1999. “Sociobiology, Status,
and Parental Investment in Sons and
Daughters: Testing the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis.” American
Journal of Sociology 104(6):1704–43.
Glynn, Adam, and Maya Sen. 2015. “Identifying Judicial
Empathy: Does Having Daughters Cause Judges
to Rule for Women’s Issues?” American Journal of Political
Science 59(1):37–54.
Kane, Emily. 2012. The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of
Raising Boys and Girls. New York: New
York University Press.
Kroska, Amy, and Cheryl Elman. 2009. “Change in Attitudes
about Employed Mothers: Exposure,
Interests, and Gender Ideology Discrepancies.” Social Science
Research 38(2):366–82.
Lee, Byungkyu, and Dalton Conley. 2016. “Does the Gender of
Offspring Affect Parental Political
Orientation?” Social Forces 94(3):1103–27.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018

Lips, Hilary. 2001. Sex and Gender: An Introduction, 4th ed.
Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing.
Lorber, Judith. 1995. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Lundberg, Shelly, and Elaina Rose. 2002. “The Effects of Sons
and Daughters on Men’s Labor Supply and
Wages.” Review of Economics and Statistics 84(2):251–68.
Lytton, Hugh, and David Romney. 1991. “Parents’ Differential
Socialization of Boys and Girls: A Meta-
Analysis.” Pyschological Bulletin 109(2):267–96.
McHale, Susan, Ann Crouter, and Shawn Whiteman. 2003. “The
Family Contexts of Gender Development
in Childhood and Adolescence.” Social Development 12(1):125–
48.
Mikołajczak, Malgorzata, and Janina Pietrzak. 2014.
“Ambivalent Sexism and Religion: Connected through
Values.” Sex Roles 70(9–10):387–99.
Morgan, S. Phillip, Diane Lye, and Gretchen Condran. 1988.
“Sons, Daughters, and the Risk of Marital
Disruption.” American Journal of Sociology 94(1):110–29.
Moseley, Kathryn, Gary Freed, and Susan Goold. 2010. “Which
Sources of Child Health Advice Do
Parents Follow?” Clinical Pediatrics 50(1):50–56.
Nyhan, Brendan, and Jason Reifler. 2010. “When Corrections
Fail: The Persistence of Political
Misperceptions.” Political Behavior 32(2):303–30.

Nyhan, Brendan, Jason Reifler, and P. A. Ubel. 2013. “The
Hazards of Correcting Myths about Health
Care Reform.” Medical Care 51(2):127–32.
OECD. 2016a. Family Database: Time Used for Work, Care and
Daily Household Chores. Retrieved from
http://www.oecd.org/els/family/database.htm.
______. 2016b. Family Database: Key Characteristics of
Parental Leave Systems. Retrieved from http://
www.oecd.org/social/family/database.htm.
Oswald, Andrew, and Nattavudh Powdthavee. 2010. “Daughters
and Left-Wing Voting.” Review of
Economics and Statistics 92(2):213–27.
Perales, Francisco, Janeen Baxter, and Tsui-o Tai. 2015.
“Gender, Justice and Work: A Distributive
Approach to Perceptions of Housework Fairness.” Social
Science Research 51:51–63.
Pollmann-Schult, Matthias. 2015. “Sons, Daughters, and the
Parental Division of Paid Work and
Housework.” Journal of Family Issues 38(1):100–123.
Raley, Sara, and Suzanne Bianchi. 2006. “Sons, Daughters, and
Family Processes: Does Gender of
Children Matter?” Annual Review of Sociology 32:401–21.
Rose, Katherine, and James Elicker. 2010. “Maternal Child Care
Preferences for Infants, Toddlers, and
Preschoolers: The Disconnect Between Policy and Preference in
the USA.” Community, Work and
Family 13(2):205–29.

Rossi, Alice, and Peter Rossi. 1990. Of Human Bonding:
Parent-Child Relations across the Life Course.
New York: De Gruyter.
Schober, Pia, and Jacqueline Scott. 2012. “Maternal
Employment and Gender Role Attitudes: Dissonance
among British Men and Women in the Transition to
Parenthood.” Work, Employment and Society 26
(3):514–30.
Scott, Jacqueline, Duane Alwin, and Michael Braun. 1996.
“Generational Changes in Gender-Role
Attitudes: Britain in a Cross-National Perspective.” Sociology
30(3):471–92.
Shafer, Emily, and Neil Malhotra. 2011. “The Effect of a
Child’s Sex on Support for Traditional Gender
Roles.” Social Forces 90(1):209–22.
Steiner, Leslie, ed. 2007. Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and
Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices,
Their Lives, Their Families. New York: Random House.
Summerfield, Michelle, Simon Freidin, Markus Hahn, Nathan
La, Ning Li, Ninette Macalalad, Mark
O’Shea, Nicole Watson, Roger Wilkins, and Mark Wooden.
2016. “HILDA User Manual—Release
15.” Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social
Research, University of Melbourne.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018

http://www.oecd.org/els/family/database.htm
http://www.oecd.org/social/family/database.htm
http://www.oecd.org/social/family/database.htm
Urbatsch, R. 2009. “Interdependent Preferences, Militarism, and
Child Gender.” International Studies
Quarterly 53(1):1–21.
Vozmediano, Laura, Cesar San-Juan, Ana I. Vergara, and
Natalia Alonso-Alberca. 2017. “Watch out,
Sweetie: The Impact of Gender and Offence Type on Parents’
Altruistic Fear of Crime.” Sex Roles 77(9–10):
676–86. doi:10.1007/s11199-017-0758-7.
Warner, Rebecca L. 1991. “Does the Sex of Your Children
Matter? Support for Feminism among Women
and Men in the United States and Canada.” Journal of Marriage
and the Family 53:1051–56.
Warner, Rebecca L., and Brent Steel. 1999. “Child Rearing as a
Mechanism for Social Change: The
Relationship of Child Gender to Parent’s Commitment to
Gender Equity.” Gender and Society 13:
503–17.
Washington, Ebonya. 2008. “Female Socialization: How
Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers’ Voting
on Women’s Issues.” American Economic Review 98(1):311–
32.
Weitzman, Abigail. 2015. “Do Fathers’ Sexual Behaviors Vary
with the Sex of Firstborns? Evidence from
37 Countries.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior
56(4):495–513.

World Economic Forum. 2016. “Rankings.” Retrieved from
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-
report-2016/rankings/.
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0758-7
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-
2016/rankings/
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-
2016/rankings/
abstract/97/1/251/4938482
on 11 August 2018
Copyright of Social Forces is the property of Oxford University
Press / USA and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a
listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users may print,
download, or email articles for
individual use.
Men’s and Women’s Gender-Role Attitudes across the

Transition to Parenthood: Accounting for Child’s
GenderIntroductionBackgroundExisting empirical evidenceAims
and contributionsInterest-based theories of life-course attitude
changeExposure-based theories of life-course attitude
changeGendered societal expectationsBackfire effect
theoriesThe Australian contextMethodologyDataset and sample
selectionOutcome variable: Gender-role attitudesKey
explanatory variables: The transition to parenthoodControl
variablesModelling strategy: Fixed-effects panel regression
modelsResultsDiscussion & ConclusionAppendixAbout the
AuthorsReferences
The Development and Correlates of Gender Role Orientations in
African-American Youth
Olivenne D. Skinner and Susan M. McHale
The Pennsylvania State University
This study charted the development of gendered personality
qualities, activity interests, and attitudes across
adolescence (approximately ages 9–18) among 319 African-
American youth from 166 families. The relations
between daily time spent with father, mother, and male and
female peers—the gendered contexts of youth’s
daily activities—and (changes in) these gender role orientations
were also assessed. Boys and girls differed in
their gender role orientations in stereotypical ways: interest in
masculine and feminine activities, and attitude
traditionality generally declined, but instrumentality increased
across adolescence and expressivity first
increased and later decreased. Some gender differences and
variations in change were conditioned by time
spent with same- and other-sex gender parents and peers. The
most consistent pattern was time with male

peers predicting boys’ stereotypical characteristics.
Gender is one of the most salient of youth’s social
identities and has implications for their achieve-
ment-related behaviors, interpersonal relationships,
and adjustment (Galambos, Berenbaum, & McHale,
2009). Among African-American youth, gender
socialization and experiences take place within the
context of their racialized experiences (Crenshaw,
Ochen, & Nanda, 2015) and as such, gender devel-
opment emerges at the intersection of youth’s racial
and gender identities. Research focused on gender
development of African-American youth and its
correlates are important given findings of gender
differences in key domains of adjustment and well-
being in this racial/ethnic group. For instance, Afri-
can-American girls are more likely than boys to
experience sexual harassment, interpersonal vio-
lence, and depression, all of which are negatively
related to outcomes such as academic achievement
and psychological adjustment (Belgrave, 2009;
Crenshaw et al., 2015). The challenges faced by
many African-American boys also are distinct in
some ways, but equally pervasive. These include
more frequent discrimination by teachers, lower
educational expectations from parents, more fre-
quent negative encounters with police, and less
access to early psychological care in comparison to
African-American girls (Barbarin, Murry, Tolan, &
Graham, 2016). Importantly, these gendered experi-
ences may have downstream implications, as evi-
dent in studies documenting gender differences
among African-American youth in academic,
employment, and health outcomes (Gregory, Skiba,
& Noguera, 2010; Losen, 2011; Matthews, Kizzie,

Rowley, & Cortina, 2010).
Among African Americans, biological sex also
has implications for family roles and experiences.
For example, African-American mothers tend to
place more demands on their daughters than their
sons; mothers’ concerns about boys’ more pervasive
experiences of racial discrimination may account for
such differences in parenting (Mandara, Varner, &
Richman, 2010; Varner & Mandara, 2014). In adult-
hood, African-Americans’ family gender roles are
manifested in low marriage rates, with close to 50%
of African-American children growing up in single-
mother headed households—as compared to 23% in
the general population (Child Trends Databank,
2015). In addition to family roles, African-Ameri-
cans’ history of slavery and economic marginaliza-
tion also has had implications for gender roles as
seen in African-American women’s long-standing
involvement in the labor force, limited employment
opportunities for African-American men, and in
some studies, men’s involvement in housework
(Hill, 2001; Penha-Lopes, 2006).
This research was supported by a grant from the Eunice Ken-
nedy Shriver National Institute on Child Health and Human
Development (R01 HD32336), Susan McHale and Ann Crouter,
Co-PIs.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Olivenne D. Skinner or Susan M. McHale, Social Science
Research
Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, 114 Henderson
University Park, PA 16802. Electronic mail may be sent to od-
[email protected] or [email protected]
© 2017 The Authors

Child Development © 2017 Society for Research in Child
Development, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2018/8905-0020
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12828
Child Development, September/October 2018, Volume 89,
Number 5, Pages 1704–1719
In short, historical and current social and eco-
nomic conditions have implications for family roles
and relationships in African-American families, and
correspondingly flexible gender role orientations
(Hill, 2001). Importantly, gender is multidimen-
sional, ranging, for example, from gender role atti-
tudes to daily activities, and the social construction
of gender means that gender role orientations will
vary as a function of time and place. Accordingly,
toward building an understanding of gender devel-
opment among African-American youth, in this
study we used an ethnic homogeneous research
design to capture within-group variation in gender
role orientations among African-American boys and
girls (Garcia Coll et al., 1996; McLoyd, 1998), we
capitalized on an accelerated longitudinal design to
chart within-individual changes in gender across
adolescence—a period of significant gender devel-
opment (Galambos et al., 2009)—, we examined
multiple dimensions of gender to illuminate poten-
tial multifaceted sex gender differences in gender
development (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006),
and we tested whether time spent with male peers,
female peers, mother, and father helped to explain
changes across adolescence in boys’ and girls’ gen-
der role orientations.

The Course of Adolescent Gender Development
Several theoretical perspectives offer insights
about the course of gender development. Cognitive
theories such as gender schema theory (Martin,
Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002) hold that the strength or
rigidity of gender concepts and corresponding
behaviors change across development. For example,
stronger stereotyping is expected during childhood,
at least in some domains, with more flexibility
emerging later, given increased cognitive develop-
ment; further, individual differences may become
more apparent later in development based on the
salience of and values regarding gender roles (Mar-
tin et al., 2002). In contrast, the gender intensifica-
tion hypothesis suggests that gender typing
becomes more pronounced during adolescence
(Ruble et al., 2006). From this perspective, the phys-
ical changes brought on by puberty are an impetus
for increases in socialization pressures for tradi-
tional gender roles and behaviors. The changes in
puberty and looming adult roles also may lead
youth to align their personal qualities and behav-
iors with more gender stereotypical self-percep-
tions, activities, values, and interests. Integrating
cognitive and socialization frameworks, from an
ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
2006), the Person 9 Process 9 Context interactions
that characterize development mean that patterns
of change will differ—including for males versus
females, as a function of socialization processes,
and across contexts, such as sociocultural settings.
As noted, research on gender also has high-

lighted its multidimensionality (Ruble et al., 2006).
And, the multiple dimensions of gender—including
values, personal-social characteristics, interests, and
activities—may be subject to differing influences
and so change in different ways across develop-
ment (McHale, Kim, Dotterer, Crouter, & Booth,
2009; Ruble et al., 2006). To begin to capture its
multidimensionality, our first study goal was to
chart the course of three dimensions of gender
development that may have both concurrent and
longer-term implications for youth’s adjustment,
achievement, and life choices (Cooper, Guthrie,
Brown, & Metzger, 2011; Crockett & Beal, 2012;
Lee, Lawson, & McHale, 2015): gendered personal-
ity characteristics (expressivity and instrumentality),
interests in gender stereotypical activities, and gen-
der role attitudes.
Gendered Personality
Stereotypically masculine, instrumental qualities
reflect individual agency, including leadership and
independence, whereas stereotypically feminine,
expressive qualities reflect orientations to others, such
as kindness and sensitivity. These gendered person-
ality qualities have been linked to indices of well-
being, including anxiety and depression (Cooper
et al., 2011; Palapattu, Kingery, & Ginsburg, 2006;
Priess, Lindberg, & Hyde, 2009), making their
developmental course and correlates important
areas of study. Recent research on the development
of gendered personality qualities has produced
mixed results. A longitudinal study of majority
White youth, from middle childhood to late adoles-
cence, showed that at age 13, girls endorsed more
expressive qualities, than boys, whereas boys

endorsed more instrumental qualities (McHale
et al., 2009). Among girls, expressivity did not
change over time, but boys showed declines in
expressivity in early adolescence and increases in
later adolescence. The authors argued that this pat-
tern was consistent with gender intensification. In
addition, boys reported more instrumental qualities
over time, and consistent with a gender schema
perspective, girls’ instrumental qualities also
increased (McHale et al., 2009). In a study of White
youth ages 11–15 (Priess et al., 2009), however, girls
reported more expressive qualities than boys at all
Development of Gender Orientations 1705
ages, and this gender difference did not change
over time. Furthermore, there were no gender dif-
ferences in instrumentality. Across time, both gen-
ders showed small increases in expressivity, but
there were no changes in instrumentality.
There are few studies on African-American
youth’s gendered personality qualities, and avail-
able data are largely cross-sectional. Palapattu et al.
(2006) found that girls, ages 14–19, endorsed more
feminine-typed personality qualities than boys, but
there were no gender differences in masculine-
typed personality qualities. Some scholars have
suggested that African-American women’s long his-
tory of economic independence and family respon-
sibilities may contribute to the development of
instrumental qualities among women, and further,
that mothers may socialize girls to develop these
qualities (Hill & Zimmerman, 1995; Sharp & Ispa,

2009). A cross-sectional study of 11- to 14-year-olds,
however, revealed that African-American boys
endorsed more instrumental qualities than girls,
and girls reported more expressive qualities than
boys (Zand & Thomson, 2005). Inconsistencies
across these studies may stem from their focus on
different age groups, such that less stereotypical
traits emerge in later adolescence, particularly
among girls. Such a pattern would be consistent
with gender schema theory and with the press for
instrumental traits within this sociocultural context.
However, we found no longitudinal studies of the
development of gendered personality qualities in
African-American youth.
Gendered Activity Interests
Interest in stereotypically feminine and mascu-
line activities is one of the first gender differences
to emerge, and gendered interests in childhood
have been shown to have long-term implications
for education and occupational achievement in
young adulthood (Lee et al., 2015). Research with
majority White youth shows that both boys and
girls are less interested in cross-gendered activities
than same-gendered activities, although girls dis-
play more flexible activity interests than boys
(Lee et al., 2015; Ruble et al., 2006). Longitudinal
research has documented stable gender differences
from childhood through late adolescence, but
overall declines in both masculine- (math, sports)
and feminine- (reading, dance) typed activity
interests for both genders that may reflect increas-
ing specialization of interests across development
(Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002;
McHale et al., 2009).

Studies of gendered activity interests among
African-American youth are largely cross-sectional
and limited to occupational interests. These data
suggest that, in middle childhood, similar to their
White and Hispanic peers, African-American chil-
dren report gender-typed occupational interests
(e.g., nursing and teaching by girls, law enforce-
ment, and sports by boys), but that older elemen-
tary school-aged girls select less gender
stereotypical careers in comparison to boys (Bobo,
Hildreth, & Durodoye, 1998); the pattern for girls is
consistent with a gender schema perspective.
Whether these gender differences exist in later ado-
lescence remains unknown, although a cross-sec-
tional study of youth ages 14–18 showed that
African-American girls aspired more to professional
occupations such as business owner and professor
in comparison to boys (Mello, Anton-Stang, Mon-
aghan, Roberts, & Worrell, 2012). Also of relevance,
research documents that African-American boys
spend more time in stereotypically masculine activi-
ties such as sports, whereas African-American girls
spend more time in feminine-typed activities such
as academics and socializing (Larson, Richards,
Sims, & Dworkin, 2001; Posner & Vandell, 1999).
Gender Role Attitudes
Gender role attitudes are associated with youth’s
expectations about education as well as the ages of
transitions into adult roles such as spouse and par-
ent, and they predict actual educational attainment
and family formation (Crockett & Beal, 2012; Cun-
ningham, Beutel, Barber, & Thornton, 2005; Davis
& Pearce, 2007). Consistent with the idea that men

gain more than women from stereotypical roles
(Ferree, 1990), in a national sample of 14- to 25-
year-old White, Hispanic, and African-American
youth, male participants endorsed more traditional
gender attitudes about work and family roles than
female participants but, consistent with a gender
schema perspective, gender differences were smal-
ler in young adulthood as compared to in adoles-
cence because young men espoused relatively less
traditional attitudes (Davis, 2007). A longitudinal
study of White youth likewise revealed gender dif-
ferences marked by boys’ greater traditionality, but
an overall pattern of change consistent with gender
intensification: declines in traditionality from child-
hood to early adolescence, leveling out between the
ages of 13 and 15, and increases in traditionality in
later adolescence. Consistent with an ecological per-
spective that highlights Person 9 Context interac-
tions in development, this change pattern was
1706 Skinner and McHale
moderated by the combination of youth’s personal
characteristics and family characteristics, including
parents’ gender attitudes (Crouter, Whiteman,
McHale, & Osgood, 2007). One longitudinal study
of African-American youth’s gender attitudes
regarding marital roles was based on the same data
set used here. Results from that study showed that
girls exhibited less traditional gender attitudes than
boys, and consistent with a gender schema perspec-
tive, youth’s traditional attitudes declined from
ages 9 to 15 and leveled off in later adolescence
(Lam, Stanik, & McHale, 2017).

692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx

692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to 692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx

Similar to 692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx (20)

More from priestmanmable

More from priestmanmable (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

692020 View Post - Guidance Note-Project 1httpslearn..docx