Literature Review

Although in the mid-twentieth century, there may have been general acceptance of the attitude that it was best for married couples if the man was the breadwinner, while the woman stayed at home to take care of the house and children, these gender roles no longer match the reality. A majority of women of child-bearing years, even those with young children, work full-time outside the home. Within the past year, news media reported that, for the first time in U.S. history, women in the U.S. who are not married (single, widowed, or divorced) outnumber those who are married. The expectation that may have been dominant a couple of generations ago that most middle-class women could expect to be supported financially by their husbands no longer fits the everyday life of most women in this country. However, despite huge changes in attitudes about gender roles, including the role of women in the workplace, women do not all view the issues of gender roles in the same way.
Marital status and years of education received were two of the three key independent variables in this analysis, and the findings of the differences in attitudes towards gender roles between married women and unmarried women, as well as between women with more education and those with less education, are presented below. Barber and Axinn (1998) said something about both of these key variables. They examined the effects of gender attitudes on behavior, specifically how these attitudes influenced the likelihood of a woman to get married at a young age. They also examined how early marriage affected young women’s attitudes about gender roles. They found a key difference between young women who intended to earn a bachelor’s degree (a four-year college degree) and those with less ambitious educational plans. Specifically, they found that women who did not plan to go to college or to complete a bachelor’s program were more likely to get married if they believed that wives should be homemakers. They also found that women who get married at a younger age are more likely to agree that wives should be homemakers. Their research findings therefore support the hypothesis that married women would be more likely than unmarried women to agree that men should be the breadwinner and women should stay at home.
Harris and Firestone (1998) found that the huge influx of women into the labor force between 1974 and 1994 had led to “more egalitarian gender role attitudes among women in the U.S. regardless of their individual characteristics and circumstances” (p. 240). This is consistent with the fact that, as noted above, a preliminary review of the data indicated that there were no significant differences in gender attitudes between working women and women who were not employed outside the home. Therefore, as noted above, this independent variable was eliminated from the analysis presented below.
Married women who work full-time outside the home are a very diverse group. Helms-Erikson, Tanner, Crouter, and McHale (2000) reported that working women’s self-concept or way of labeling themselves may not match their employment status. Even those working women who are breadwinners for their families “do not necessarily define themselves as providers or breadwinners for their families. . . . Paid work often holds different meanings for wives and husbands” (p. 658–659). Many of them are likely to see their employment as secondary, even if they want to work and even if their participation in the workforce enhances their mental health and feelings of well-being. The authors also found that the women who had occupational prestige were less likely to suffer from depression or marital conflict, suggesting that the success, recognition, and earnings that women receive (or fail to receive) from their careers are significant factors. Attitudes towards whether children are harmed by their mothers working are likely to differ between affluent women who can afford day care (or a nanny) and minimum-wage working mothers who do not have access to satisfactory childcare for their children, who may well feel ambivalent about having to work. 
Vannoy and Philliber (1992) have found through their research that attitudes towards gender are more important than such things as employment status “in determining the perceived quality of marriages” (p. 387). However, they also found that many men have trouble dealing with a wife whose career is more successful than the husband’s. This suggests that although most women need to work, out of economic necessity, they are likely to experience stress and ambivalence due to lack of success (inadequate child care and day care) or too much success (husbands who have issues of insecurity and low self-esteem). No wonder women are still conflicted about balancing work life and home life.