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. 2023 Jan;62(1):12-29.
doi: 10.1111/bjso.12575. Epub 2022 Sep 13.

When work-family guilt becomes a women's issue: Internalized gender stereotypes predict high guilt in working mothers but low guilt in working fathers

Lianne Aarntzen  1 , Belle Derks  2 , Elianne van Steenbergen  2 , Tanja van der Lippe  2
Affiliations

When work-family guilt becomes a women's issue: Internalized gender stereotypes predict high guilt in working mothers but low guilt in working fathers

Lianne Aarntzen et al. Br J Soc Psychol. 2023 Jan.

Abstract

Gender stereotypes prescribe mothers, but not fathers, to prioritize their family over their work. Therefore, internalization of gender stereotypes may predict higher guilt among mothers than fathers in situations in which they prioritize their work over their family. Study 1 (135 mothers and 116 fathers) indeed revealed that the stronger fathers' implicit gender stereotypes (measured with a gender-career implicit association task) the less guilt fathers reported in a fictitious work-interfering-with-family situation. Although mothers on average reported higher guilt than fathers, this effect was not moderated by their implicit gender stereotypes. Study 2 (daily diary study among 105 mothers), however, did reveal evidence for the moderating effect of implicit gender stereotypes on working mothers' guilt. The stronger mothers' implicit gender stereotypes the more work-family conflict and guilt they reported on days that they worked long hours. These results show that implicit gender stereotypes shape how parents feel about their work-family choices.

Keywords: fathers; gender stereotypes; guilt; mothers; work-family conflict.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Parents' work–family guilt as a function of their gender and their gender–career implicit association test (IAT) score. IAT score was mean_centered. Lower scores on IAT indicate more egalitarian associations while higher scores indicate more traditional associations. *p < .05; **p < .01
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Multilevel moderated mediation model showing how daily work–family conflict mediates the relationship between daily workhours and daily work–family conflict and how implicit gender stereotypes (measured with the gender‐career implicit association test [IAT] on the person level) moderate the relationship between workhours and work–family conflict. *p < .05; **p < .01
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Interaction effect of implicit gender stereotypes (measured with the gender–career implicit association test [IAT]) and daily workhours on daily work–family conflict. The graph shows work–family conflict as a function of workhours per week and participants' IAT score. IAT score was mean_centered. Lower scores on IAT indicate more egalitarian associations while higher scores indicate more traditional associations. *p < .05; ns, not significant
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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