Findings and Implications

As noted above, a review of data indicated substantial redundancy in responses to the battery of questions, so only two were selected for presentation herein to reflect the extent to which women view men and women as equals in the workplace and the extent to which women think that women can balance responsibilities in the workplace with family responsibilities, as reflected in responses (agreement/disagreement) with the following two statements:
• It is better if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.
• A working mother can establish just as secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work. 
The differences were significant for both statements (at the .000 level) for all three independent variables: marital status, years of education completed, and political party affiliation. 
The results are presented in Table 1 on the following page.  Overall, women tend to disagree with the traditional view of marriage of husband and father as breadwinner and wife and mother as stay-at-home housewife.  Married women and Republican women were more likely than their unmarried and Democratic counterparts, however to accept those traditional gender roles, although even within those groups, they tended to disagree with those traditional gender roles (just not to the extent that their unmarried, Democratic counterparts did).  The fact that married women are more likely to embrace these traditional roles is consistent with the findings of Barber and Axinn (1998), as discussed above in the literature review section. The more educated a woman is, the more likely she is to reject traditional gender roles of man as breadwinner, woman as stay-at-home mom.  (See Table 1.)
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Table 1

Summary of Attitudes by Marital Status, Education, and Political Affiliation

                                Better for Man to Work, Woman to Tend Home
                                                                                                 Standard
                                                                                Mean       Error                       Beta              Significance
                                Total Respondents                2.776 .014
                                Marital Status                    -.060 .017        -0.034      .000
                                Education                             +.096 .003        +0.314      .000
                                Political Affiliation                 -.029 .004        -6.953      .000

                                Mother Working Doesn’t Hurt Children
                                                                                                 Standard
                                                                                Mean       Error                       Beta              Significance
                                Total Respondents                2.902 .038
                                Marital Status                    +.049 .017        +0.028      .004
                                Education                             -.063 .003        -0.207      .000
                                Political Affiliation                 +.024 .004        +0.055      .000
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Note: Detailed results are shown in the Appendix.

            The same between-group differences can be seen in the second attitude statement—a mother working doesn’t hurt her children—that is, married, less educated, and Republican women, respectively are more likely to hold the more traditional, conservative attitude.  Unmarried women, women with more education, and women who lean more towards the Democratic Party than the Republican Party are all more likely to believe that a mother working does not hurt her children.  However, women as a whole appear to have more trouble with this issue—embracing the dual role of working outside the home and bringing up children—than they do in rejecting gender-based roles for working outside the home. 
            What this suggests is that although women reject inequality and discrimination against women in the workplace, they still feel ambivalent about juggling career and family responsibilities.  This makes sense, given the trend towards longer work weeks (more hours at work for full-time jobs), less job security, employer cuts in benefits to workers, such as healthcare, increased global competition for American goods and services (e.g., outsourcing to overseas order-fulfillment and customer service operators), which leaves the typical American worker, man or woman, with less time, less energy, and less peace of mind.  Women, including the majority of women with young children, have been in the work force long enough, perhaps, to have second thoughts about the myth that “you can have it all.”  Many women may be working full-time outside the home out of economic necessity, despite a nagging worry that it might be better, at least in some ways, for their children if they could afford to be stay-at-moms.  However, given the failure of wages and salaries to keep pace with inflation for huge numbers of middle-class families, the stay-at-home-mom option may simply not be a generally viable solution anymore.