The intergenerational transmission of gender role attitudes and its implications for female labor force participation

Résumé

Using a sample of mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 we explore the intergenerational transmission of a social norm regarding women¿s roles and examine its implications for the labor market behavior of females. We find that a mother¿s attitudes towards working women have a statistically significant effect on those of her children. Furthermore we find that the component of this social norm that is correlated with the individual¿s mother¿s work behavior during that individual¿s youth not only affects the labor market force participation decision of a female individual, but also has an equally strong association with that of the wife of a male individual. The findings indicate that cultural transmission contributes to the intergenerational similarity in the work behavior of females.