The effects of maternal employment upon daughters' occupational choices: a cross-sectional developmental study

Abstract

The overriding aim of this study is to highlight the areas of girls' career choices and to delineate the reasons for these career choices in order to throw light on the importance of vocational guidance awareness for girls at the school level. The express purpose of this paper is to determine women's perceptions of themselves, their aspirations and expectations as they relate to the world of work. A historical perspective is provided by way of an introduction to the wider social matrix in which women find themselves in. Research on women and work is reviewed. Socio-economic constraints are explored, while avenues and agencies for change are investigated. Overseas studies indicate that daughters with mothers in non-traditional work are more likely to choose non-traditional work also. This study set out to see whether these trends exist in New Zealand or whether a distinctly indigenous pattern emerges. Attention was directed towards the educational and occupational awareness of girls. It was predicted that with increasing age, respondents answers to questions would appear more developed according to the theories under study. Girls aged 10, 12, 14 and 16 years were sampled. A written questionnaire was developed and distributed to outlying schools in the Wellington region. Four hundred and seventy-two boys and girls aged 10, 12, 14 and 16 years of age were sampled from the Wellington Education Board District. A 40 item questionnaire was developed to look into the effects of maternal employment on future job choices of children. Questions were designed to reveal who or what affected girls' occupational choices. Data for both girls and boys was collected, with the boys data acting as a control group. Due to the unexpectedly small number of mothers employed in non-traditional female jobs, the statistical analyses could only look at daughters with mothers in traditional female job versus mothers who were full-time homemakers. Significant age differences appear on a number of variables on this study. Younger children appear more confident at being able to get their aspired job than older children. 10, 12 and 14-year-old boys are more confident at being successful in their aspired-to job than girls of a similar age, however, 16-year-old girls were more positive at being successful in their aspired-to job than boys. Both 16-year-old girls and boys were more confident in their ability to get and be successful at their realistic job choice than younger children. Females realistic job choices were lower in socio-economic status level than the choices of the males. 16-year-olds were more confident at their ability to get their realistic and aspired-to job choices than the younger age groups. The two oldest age groups talk more frequently to their mothers about their future job plans, with 16-year-olds also talking to their father more frequently than the other age groups. Young aged children see a great number of factors influencing their future job choice. This group emphasises the role the media plays in influencing their job choices compared with older age groups. The younger age groups see different factors as being important in a job. Factors singled out as being particularly important are remuneration, hours of work, cleanliness, ease of task completion, on the job training, involvement with people and an absence of job anxiety. In direct contrast to this pattern, the older age group stressed 'job security'. The males in this age group see potential for 'promotion within a job' as more important than girls. Areas of general interest reveal typical gender-stereotyping with boys being interested in 'machines and tools', 'working with numbers' and 'discovering and solving problems', while girls are more interested in 'animals and plants'. Boys feel that 'being a boy' had a greater influence on their particular choice of career than girls thought 'being a girl' had on their choice. Males gender-stereotype occupations more frequently than females. Younger children appear to use gender-stereotyping more often than the older children. Girls appeared to gender-stereotype occupations less than boys, however, they still tended to see themselves entering traditional female employment. No significant difference was found on occupational choice for girls whose mothers were full-time homemakers and those girls whose mothers were in paid employment. The results do not support the hypothesis that maternal employment affects daughters' occupational choices. The results do suggest, however, that girls saw less jobs being available to them than did boys.