Attitudes of young people in Germany towards parental involvement in paid work: evidence of intergenerational transmission

Abstract

This article examines young people’s attitudes towards parental involvement in paid work and their association with two channels of intergenerational transmission – parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies – the relative importance of these channels and if young people’s gender moderates the association. The data came from a German two-wave panel study of 609 adolescents (aged 15–21) surveyed in 2018 and their mothers in 2013–15. Analyses show that young people’s preferred weekly working hours for mothers were positively related to their parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies four years earlier. In contrast, the more progressive their mother’s gender ideology was, the fewer working hours young people preferred for fathers. The two transmission channels were nearly equally important and their impact did not differ between female and male adolescents. Our findings suggest that the intergenerational transmission of gender roles might be one of multiple factors contributing to stalling trends in gender equality.