Young Women's Multiple Role Management Expectations: Influence of Feminism and Role Modeling
Year: 2014
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: More women are entering the workforce (Betz, 2005), and these women have an interest in managing multiple life roles (Hoffnung, 2004).Multiple roles can be beneficial (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) or problematic (Adelmann, 1994) for one's overall well-being, and can be determined by one's subjective perception of ability to manage roles.This study examined multiple role management through the lens of social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) within a female sample.Maternal role modeling and feminist identification were proposed to function as predictors of self-efficacy expectations and outcome expectations for multiple role management.Within the social cognitive career theory model, these predictors were operationalized as learning experiences of young women hypothesized to influence confidence to manage life roles of worker, parent, and partner.These three roles were selected for the present study based on their common assessment in prior literature (Hoffnung, 2004;Kerpelman & Schvaneveldt, 1999;Riggio & Desrochers, 2006;Tingey, Kiger, & Riley, 1996) and research that indicated these three roles as ideal life roles among young women (Bridges, 1987).Data were collected from 422 undergraduate women at a Midwestern University.Participants completed a self-efficacy for multiple role management measure modeled from the SEERM (Lefcourt, 1995), the Influence of Others on Academic and Career Decisions Scale (Nauta & Kokaly, 2001), a maternal role modeling measure developed based on literature (Weer et al., 2006), the Feminist Identity Composite (Fisher et al., 2000), the Feminist Beliefs and Behavior measure (Zucker, 2004), a multiple roles outcome expectations measure developed based on literature (Fouad & Guillen, 2006; Lent & Brown, 2006), a checklist to assess participants' identified primary role models, and an open-ended item for participants to describe concluding comments.Structural equation model analyses demonstrated inadequate fit between the model and data.Findings demonstrated significant paths extending from feminist identity to self-efficacy expectations, feminist identity to outcome expectations, and self-efficacy expectations to outcome expectations.Exploratory analyses involving substitution of maternal role modeling items with the IOACDS revealed maternal role modeling significantly predicted self-efficacy expectations.Findings were explained based on the conceptualization of variables and measurement concerns.v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people that strongly influenced the development and completion of this project.I thank Dr.
Author: Robin B. Kirby
Institution: University of Akron
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2526816903