Maternal Employment and Family Socioeconomic Status Effects on Daughter's Self-Concept and Attitude Towards Women and Work: LISREL Models

158 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of mother's employment variables and family socioeconomic status on daughter's self-concept and attitude towards women and work. Two groupings of 9th and 12th grade subjects were investigated: daughters whose mothers were employed at least part of the time during the daughter's life (group 1, n = 512); and the group 1 sample plus daughters whose mothers had never been employed (group 2, n = 690).The LISREL VI (Linear Structural Relationships) program was used to obtain a satisfactory causal model in which the independent variables were Mother's Occupational Status, Mother's Education, and Family Socioeconomic Status (SES); the dependent variables were Daughter's Academic, Family, General, and Social Self-esteen, Independent Self-concept, Attitude Towards Women and Work, and total amount of time mother has worked outside the home in years (Total Work). Results for both groups indicate that Total Work had a significant direct effect on daughter's Attitude Towards Women and Work. There was also a moderate but significant direct effect of Total Work on daughter's Independent Self-concept and on Social Self-esteem for both groups. Only when daughters with housewife mothers (group 2) were included in the sample did the effect of the SES variable become significant. The pattern of causal paths among the self-concept variables and Attitude Towards Women and Work was almost the same for both groups, but for group 1 the relationships were stronger. This indicates that the causal relationships among the dependent variables exist apart from the effect of the independent variables.These findings have implications for young women, especially their early socialization by parents and educators. Parents, especially the mothers, should be aware of the potential positive impact of their employment on their daughter's occupational sex-role concept and on their independence. Not only parents but also teachers, counselors, and educational policy makers could encourage positive attitudes toward work on the part of young women by introducing them to the important role of women in work and family roles, presenting them with mothers who have satisfactorily combined these roles and providing them with educational opportunities based on their individual academic potential and interest.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD