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Recent decades have seen increases in parents' time with children and their endorsement of time‐intensive parenting, but little is known about adolescents' attitudes regarding the time that parents in general (i.e., not their own parents specifically) spend with children. We analyze separate attitudinal measures of fathers' time and mothers' time with children using data from the eighth and tenth grade Monitoring the Future surveys for 1991 to 2019. Overall, the majority of adolescents agree that most fathers and mothers, but especially fathers, should spend more time with their children than they do. Black girls are the most likely to agree that fathers and mothers should spend more time with their children while white boys are the least likely. The largest increases in agreement that fathers and mothers should spend more time with their children are found for white girls. Exploring parental education and mother's employment as potential mechanisms for these trends, we find that attitudes about the time most fathers and mothers should spend with children have converged across parental education levels and maternal employment statuses over the years of our study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the overwhelming majority of births in the United States (U.S.) occur in hospitals and other medical settings rather than at home, the only births many U.S. women see before giving birth themselves are those shown in media, such as films and television series. Using thematic analysis of 111 media pieces consisting of fictional films and television show episodes that feature childbirth and were released in the U.S. from 1988 to 2023, we investigate what these depictions communicate about women during childbirth and whether these portrayals have changed over time. Overall, we find that the depictions in these movies and television show episodes rely on institutionalized medicine, emotionally intense labor and deliveries, objectification of women, and gendered behaviors during childbirth. These depictions have changed little over the time period we examined and convey the strong preservation of the gender structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational expectations have increased over time, with greater increases among young women than men, yet research focused on expectations for post-baccalaureate degrees is limited. We investigate young men's and women's plans to attend graduate or professional school using Monitoring the Future data from 12th graders for 1976 to 2019, focusing on how academic performance and work and family values may be associated with post-baccalaureate expectations. We find that young women's expectations for graduate or professional school began to exceed young men's in the early 1990s and continued to do so afterward, although expectations for post-baccalaureate schooling declined some in recent years, especially among young men. Results also indicate that the gender gap over time is driven partially by more young women than men with B or lower average grades holding post-baccalaureate expectations. Work values may foster these high expectations, especially for lower-achieving young women. Finally, we examine whether post-baccalaureate expectations translate into higher attainments, and results suggest that higher-achieving students are better positioned to meet their post-baccalaureate expectations. Collectively, our findings suggest that sociocultural factors promoting women's participation in the public sphere may encourage some young women to form high-level expectations that they are not academically equipped to meet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon work effort and gendered organizations perspectives and using data from the Current Population Survey, we examine how family structure types (i.e., combinations of marital and parental statuses) shape within- and between-gender variation in the earnings of highly educated men and women working in STEM and non-STEM occupations. We find that STEM and non-STEM women earn premia for marriage and for motherhood if they are married, with higher family-related premia for STEM women. Analysis of married men and women by specific STEM category reveals the largest parenthood premium is for women in engineering. Yet, STEM men and non-STEM men generally earn more than their counterpart women, with the largest between-gender wage difference for married parents in non-STEM occupations. Taken together, these findings provide a mixed picture of movement towards gender equality in work organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether adherence to dominant masculine norms and choice of college major are related among undergraduate men in the United States. Our results indicate that men's level of conformity to certain masculine norms is associated with their postsecondary field of study. In particular, we find men's adherence to the masculine norm of emotional control is associated negatively with selecting majors from such academic fields as clinical and health sciences or arts and humanities compared to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and doctoral-track medicine (e.g., pre-medicine and pre-dentistry). Conformity to the masculine norm to focus on work is related negatively to choosing a major in arts and humanities or communication and media fields compared to STEM and doctoral-track medicine fields. These results suggest ways that dominant social norms about masculinity may contribute to gender segregation of postsecondary fields of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We investigate how different types of high school romantic involvement are associated with women's and men's patterns of college enrollment (four‐year college, two‐year college, and no enrollment). Methods: We analyze restricted‐access longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) using multinomial logistic regression. Results: Controlling for baseline educational, romantic, sociodemographic, and family context variables, results show gender‐specific associations between romantic involvement and college enrollment. For women, negative associations between romantic involvement and four‐year enrollment dissipate after accounting for changes in grade point average and educational and marital expectations. However, a negative association between women's casual dating with sex and two‐year enrollment persists, after controlling for these factors. In contrast, casual dating with and without sex is associated with higher likelihood of men's four‐year enrollment accounting for these covariates. Conclusions: Our findings provide directions for future research on associations between gender, adolescent romance, and educational transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate associations between adherence to femininity and choice of college major using a sample of university women in the United States. Our results indicate that general conformity to feminine norms is related to postsecondary field of study. With background factors controlled, general conformity to feminine norms is associated negatively with women’s odds of choosing STEM and doctoral-track medicine majors, as well as arts and humanities majors, relative to other fields of study. Our multivariate results also indicate that level of conformity to specific feminine norms, including norms for being relationship-oriented, caring for children, and being domestic, is related to postsecondary field of study, especially for choosing a major in arts and humanities, business, and communication and journalism. Taken together, our findings suggest that cultural norms about femininity contribute to ongoing gender segregation of academic fields of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa, a country that is highly stratified by race, is an important location for studying the relationship between race and educational expectations. Using a longitudinal data set, we examine the educational expectations of black (African), colored (mixed race), and white (European ancestry) parents and children in Cape Town, South Africa. We find that parents and children have high educational expectations regardless of race, but black parents and children have higher educational expectations than coloreds and whites once socioeconomic and other factors are controlled. We also find that parents' and children's expectations tend to agree more and are more closely correlated among coloreds and whites than blacks. We test two explanations for the educational expectations of parents and children, finding more support for the status attainment perspective among coloreds and whites than blacks and support for the family social capital perspective among blacks and coloreds only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONTEXT: HIV prevalence is high among South African youth. Health behavior models posit that the perceived level of risk of HIV infection is associated with the level of HIV risk behavior; however, there has been limited research in Sub-Saharan Africa on factors associated with perceived risk or on the relationship between perceived risk and risk behaviors. METHODS: Longitudinal data collected in 2002 and 2005 from 3,017 black, colored and white youth in Cape Town, South Africa, were analyzed using multivariate regression to examine whether a reciprocal relationship exists between sexual experience and perceived HIV risk. Independent variables taken from the 2002 survey were used to predict dependent variables taken from the 2005 survey. RESULTS: In 2005, most youth (82% of males and 83% of females) viewed themselves as being at no or small risk of HIV infection. A reciprocal relationship in which higher perceived HIV risk was associated with a delay in sexual debut (odds ratio, 0.8) and sexual experience was associated with higher perceived risk (1.4) was found for females, but not for males. Knowing someone who had died of AIDS was associated with sexual debut and with an elevated perceived HIV risk among females (1.7 and 1.3, respectively). The associations between race and perceived risk of HIV infection varied by gender. CONCLUSIONS: HIV/AIDS education and prevention programs should consider more carefully how gender and race may intersect to influence risk perceptions and risk behaviors. In addition, possible reciprocal relationships between risk behaviors and risk perceptions should be considered in education and intervention programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides a recent profile of the gender and race-ethnicity of faculty in top research departments of economics, political science, and sociology. Most faculty are male, although there appear to be critical masses of women in political science and sociology. Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented among faculty relative to their shares of the population. Within each racial-ethnic group examined, there are more male than female faculty members, with a smaller gender gap for Blacks than for other racial-ethnic groups. In general, the higher the rank, the greater the proportion of males than females, especially for Whites and Asians. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Using data from a 31-year panel study, we investigate reciprocal relationships between individuals’ attitudes about gender and their experience with a range of social settings commonly associated with the transition to adulthood. These settings include school, the labor market, independent living arrangements, cohabitation, marriage, and parenthood. We consider the extent to which gender and age moderate the relationships between attitudes about gender and exposure to these social contexts. Ordinary least squares regression and hazard models demonstrate that support for egalitarian roles for women and men in families is positively linked to subsequent school enrollment, women’s full-time employment, and independent living, but negatively associated with the subsequent timing of entry into marriage and marital parenthood. Accumulated schooling, independent living, and full-time employment are associated with changes in individuals’ attitudes about gender. Despite careful attention to gender differences, we find surprisingly little evidence that the causes and consequences of attitudes about gender differ for women and men, with the primary exception being the positive association of employment and egalitarian gender attitudes for women but not for men. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To date, relatively little is known about the prosocial values of adolescents. Research has shown that females attach more importance to certain prosocial values than males do in late adolescence but has not considered whether this gender difference is evident across stages of adolescence and whether it varies by race. We examine values that focus on doing things for others, using data from a nationwide survey of 12- to 17-year-olds. We find that girls place more importance on these prosocial values than boys at younger ages. However, we also find important patterns in this gender difference across racial groups as well as across age. White boys appear to attach less importance to prosocial values than other race and gender groups. Furthermore, the gender gap in prosocial values is larger at older ages, with older adolescent boys placing less importance on prosocial values than younger ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on the relationship between adolescent childbearing and later life outcomes is deficient in two respects. First, it has focused almost exclusively on socioeconomic outcomes, failing to consider the possible effect of a birth on social psychological outcomes. Second, it generally has not considered whether the relationship between adolescent childbearing and outcomes has changed across cohorts and over time. This study attempts to fill these two gaps by estimating and comparing the effects of non-marital childbearing on change in a social psychological variable, educational expectations, over the period between the sophomore year in high school and two years later, using longitudinal data for the sophomore cohorts of High School and Beyond, 1980, and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Findings for both cohorts indicate that adolescent girls tend to reduce their educational expectations following a nonmarital pregnancy or birth. In addition, adolescent girls with low educational expectations are at greater risk of a nonmarital pregnancy or birth than adolescent girls with high educational expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine gender differences in the fundamental value orientations of U.S. adolescents. We focus on concern with finding purpose and meaning in life and the basis on which meaning is derived, including connection to others and contribution to their well-being, and economic success that involves embracing the market values of materialism and competition. We develop three measures of value orientation: (1) compassion, which reflects concern and responsibility for the well-being of others; (2) materialism, which reflects emphasis on material benefit and competition; and (3) meaning, which reflects philosophical concern with finding purpose and meaning in life. We find substantial gender differences on all three measures. Females in our sample are more likely than males to express concern and responsibility for the well-being of others, less likely than males to accept materialism and competition, and more likely than males to indicate that finding purpose and meaning in life is extremely important. These differences are observed throughout the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s and show little sign of decreasing; they are evident across social class subgroups and cannot be explained by gender differences in religiosity or the perceived availability of social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The speeches of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger have received scant attention. This article examines the contraceptive rhetoric in Sanger's speeches to international and US audiences. Drawing from scholarship on epistemic communities and the politicization of women's bodies, it uses rhetorical analysis to identify the thematic elements of these speeches. It finds that Sanger's rhetoric in her internationally delivered speeches mostly located the act of contraception at national and international levels, rather than at individual or family levels. Additionally, Sanger's contraceptive rhetoric in the United States created bodies in search of creative fulfillment, while her nomUS rhetoric worked largely to construct bodies in pursuit of civic responsibility. The epistemic community backing Sanger privileged and legitimized her rhetoric, helping to construct women--especially women outside the United States--as nationalistic entities and global citizens through whom the successful adoption of contraception equated with a better nation and a more peaceful world. The article underscores how rhetoric, backed by an epistemic community, operates as a powerful tool for constructing gendered political and civic bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the gender gap in earnings has been influenced heavily by human capital theory and theories of labor market segmentation. Both theories consider the role of gender differences in values on the "supply side" only with respect to the allocation of time between the labor market and the home and its possible effect on career decision making. Gender differences in values, however, may affect the choice of occupations and jobs, as well as the way in which jobs are performed. This article reports on a study of gender differences in the job values of U.S. high school seniors from 1976 to 1991. Unlike earlier studies of job values, the authors found no gender differences in the importance of extrinsic rewards and influence, but persisting gender differences in the importance of intrinsic, altruistic, and social rewards. Young women attach greater importance to these latter rewards than do young men and less importance to the leisure-related aspects of jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]