Occupational and familial long-term effects of gender role attitudes

Gender role attitudes can explain gender differences in occupational success and familial and domestic responsibilities. These attitudes are especially salient during emerging adulthood as young adults lay the first foundations for their future career paths and familial decisions. We aim to determine whether gender role attitudes in young adulthood have long-term consequences for occupational success and familial and household responsibilities 9 (M age = 31) and 18 years (M age = 40) later. The question will be addressed by using three waves of a longitudinal dataset from Germany (N = 4,812). Gender role attitudes were assessed in young adulthood in 2000/2001 (M age = 22), while the occupational success indicators, full-time employment, income, occupational prestige, and sector, as well as familial and household responsibilities, were assessed in the year 2009/2010 (M age = 31) and 2018 (M age = 40). The results show positive bivariate associations between young women’s gender role attitudes and their income and prestige at ages 31 and 40. For men, more egalitarian gender role attitudes were linked to lower income at age 31 when accounting for background characteristics. A positive significant bivariate association emerged between men’s early gender role attitudes and their occupational prestige at ages 31 and 40.