After decades of glacial change in gender roles, a new generation of working women is proving to be as ambitious as their male counterparts, as measured by their eagerness to move up the career ladder.
Based on a unique long-term study of attitudes in the U.S. work force, about two-thirds of both men and women under age 29 say they desire more responsibility on the job. Having children doesn't dent the ambitions of young women workers; 69% of mothers in this age group say they want to move up on the job, compared with 66% of women without children, says the study of about 3,500 wage, salaried and self-employed workers and small-business owners, released Thursday by the nonprofit Families and Work Institute in New York.
That compares with a marked difference among these groups as recently as 2002, when only 48% of young working mothers, compared with 66% of men and 61% of young women without children, said they wanted to climb the career ladder.
Young women's motivation for saying they want more responsibility on the job can't be determined from the data. One factor is that women are shouldering a larger breadwinning role at home, either by necessity or choice; females in dual-earner couples now provide an average 44% of household income, up from 39% in 1997, the study says. And husbands are taking on more workload at home; 31% of women say their spouses do half or most of the child care, up from 21% in 1992. Women also say men are gradually shouldering more of the cooking and cleaning.
The study asked questions about work and family roles, attitudes about home life and the workplace, and other worklife issues. While many surveys dabble in these issues, this study is unusually rigorous, gauging answers to the same questions periodically since 1977 through a random telephone survey of a nationally representative sample.
In another shift, men of all ages now report work-family conflicts at a higher rate than women, suggesting the sexes are reaching new parity on this front too. While 34% of both men and women reported work-life conflicts in 1977, that percentage has risen by 11 percentage points to 45% among men, compared with a rise of only five points among women, to 39%.
The findings reflect a 'revolutionary change in attitudes and behaviors among both women and men,' says Ellen Galinsky, president of the institute. Generation Y, born after 1980, seems to be approaching equality in gender attitudes, accelerating likely pressure on employers to make career paths more flexible and offer such work-life supports as alternative scheduling.
Also, a broad shift in attitudes is lowering old barriers. Prejudice against working mothers is easing; today, 67% of men and 80% of women agree that employed women can be good mothers, the study says. This compares with 49% of men and 71% of women in 1977. People whose own mothers worked when they were growing up were much more likely to agree strongly that working moms can do just as good a job with their children as those who stay at home.
Earlier in this decade, a dip in the percentage of young mothers who also held jobs sparked much discussion of why women were 'opting out' of the work force. The 2002 dip in women's career ambition, also reflected in the survey, may have been linked to a sharp increase in overwork and job pressure following the dot-com bust, based on the institute's previous research on employee attitudes at the time, Ms. Galinsky says.
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職場上的性別角色在經過幾十年的緩慢變化之後，從在職場獲得晉升的意願來看，新一代女性如今已經證明她們的職業“野心”不亞於男性。
根據對美國職場人士心態的一項長期研究顯示，29歲以下的職場男性和女性中，分別都有大約三分之二的人表示他們希望承擔更多的工作職責。這項獨一無二的調查還表明，有孩子並不影響年輕女性的進取心；這個年齡段的母親中有69%表示她們希望得到晉升，而沒有孩子的女性這個比例是66%。紐約非盈利組織“家庭和工作研究會”(Families and Work Institute)上週四發表了相關研究報告，他們調查了大約3,500名勞動者，其中既有領取週薪或月薪者，也有自僱人員或小企業主。
上述比例與2002年的同項調查數字發生了很大變化，當時，有孩子的年輕職業女性中只有48%的人表示希望在職場上獲得提升，而對男性和沒有孩子的女性，這個比例分別爲66%和61%。
從調查數據上判斷不出年輕女性說她們希望承擔更多工作職責的動機。一個因素是，女性分擔了更多養家餬口的壓力，不論是出於自願還是形勢所迫。研究顯示，在雙職工家庭中，女性貢獻的收入平均佔44%，而1997年是39%。同時，雙職工家庭中丈夫分擔的家務也在增多；有31%的女性說，她們的配偶負擔了一半甚至大部分照看孩子的任務，而1992年時這個數字是21%。女性被調查者還說，男子在煮飯和打掃衛生方面也做的越來越多。
調查還包括有關工作和家庭角色、對家庭生活和工作的態度以及其他工作、生活方面的問題。儘管許多其他調查也會涉及這類問題，但這項調查之嚴格可謂不同尋常。調查方從1977年以來定期對具有代表性的樣本進行隨機電話採訪，並對被訪者就同一個問題的回答進行統計。
另一個變化是，所有年齡段的男性現在反映工作與家庭存在衝突的比例比女性高，顯示男性和女性在這方面實現了新的平衡。1977年，反映工作與家庭衝突的男性和女性比例都是34%，但現在，男性的這個比例上升到45%，也就是上升了11個百分點，而女性僅上升5個百分點，爲39%。
家庭和工作研究會主席蓋林斯基(Ellen Galinsky)說，調查結果反映出“男性和女性在態度和行爲上均發生了革命性的變化。”八十年代以後出生的所謂“Y一代”似乎在性別態度上接近平等，這加大了僱主可能會感到的壓力：他們需要讓職業發展道路更靈活，並採取多種工作時間等緩解工作和家庭衝突的支援性措施。
此外，態度上的`廣泛改變也減少了一些傳統的障礙。如今，對就業母親的偏見少了，研究顯示，有67%的男性和80%的女性認爲，職業女性可以同樣是個好媽媽。1977年時上述比例分別是49%和71%。在自己成長期間母親在工作的被調查者更可能認同這樣的觀點：母親工作不妨礙她們像全職媽媽一樣照顧好子女的。
本世紀頭幾年，年輕媽媽就業比例有所下降的趨勢引發了一場對女性爲何選擇放棄工作的大討論。蓋林斯基說，工作和家庭學會在2002年的這項系列調查中還發現，女性的職業“野心”有所下降，這或許跟當時互聯網泡沫破滅後，過勞現象和工作壓力急劇加重有關。