Parenthood and Changing Gender Role Attitudes in Sweden

Sandra Krapf, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

This study examines the changes in individual level gender role attitudes according to parenthood. The central argument is that such attitudes are not stable over first, second and higher order births. We expect to find an adaptation of family and gender role values according to parity progression and sex: the more children a male person has, the more traditionalist. For women we assume to find the opposite relationship, i.e. the more children the more egalitarian attitudes. Our methodological approach is twofold: first we describe the sequences of attitudinal changes in order to identify eventual trajectories of gender attitudes over time. Second, we apply ordered logistic regression analysis to measure the influence of main explanatory variables, such as parenthood and other socio-demographic variables, on these attitudinal changes. The empirical investigation is based on the Swedish survey dataset “Family and Working Life in the 21st Century” which provides the opportunity to follow 2,089 young Swedes over 3 waves.