:"", " r· PERCEPTIONS OF WOMEN'S OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM*

This study assesses the impact ofsocio-economic status and family life on perceptions of women's opportunities among German and British women and men. Our theoretical framework links national characteristics to individual characteristics and perceptions. We hypothesize that the influence of work-family status on perceptions of women's opportunities varies by gender and country because of cross-national differences in ideology and policy. Separate multiple regression analyses for women and men in eacb country ' indicate important variations in the effects of labor force participation. family income, age, and family status on perceptions ofwomen's opportunities for education and employment. Studies of the relationship between work-family status and perceptions of women's opportunities in society are scant. Cross-national efforts dealing with this relationship have been particularly neglected. However, perceptions of women's opportunities are shaped by both personal experiencesat work and in the family as well as by the larger cultural and political context, The relative neglect of this research area may be partially attributed to the difficulty of integrating " societal characteristics, individualposition in the social structure.and the public's perceptions of women's opportunities into a single model. These relationships are made even more complex by the mediating role of state ideology and policy. This study estimates the empirical connections between individual characteristics and perceptions of women's opportunities among * An earlier version of this paper was presentedat the 1988Annual Meetingsof the American SociologicalAssociation in Atlanta. We thank HarrietPresser, C