Young women's multiple role management expectations: Influence of feminism and role modeling

• Main Author: Kirby, Robin B
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2014
• Subjects: Counseling Psychology; Occupational psychology
• ISBN: 9781321482201; 1321482205

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.