< Back to previous page

Publication

Male engagement in communal roles: Factors that limit and drive men's interest, motivation, and intent

Book - Dissertation

Much of the social psychological research on gender (in)equality has focused on women's underrepresentation in fields and roles that are considered traditionally masculine, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM). However, only a limited amount of research has been conducted on men's underrepresentation in fields that are traditionally female, such as roles in health care, early education, and in the domestic sphere (i.e., HEED). Therefore, this doctoral project focused on understanding some of the individual level factors, group level factors, as well as country level factors that limit and drive men's interest, motivation, and intent to engage in communal roles using a variety of research procedures, methods, analytical approaches, and sample bases. Specifically, in my dissertation I examined the role of gender norms and pluralistic ignorance regarding these norms in men's communal self-descriptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions (Chapter 2). Findings showed that young men have a faulty, more strict, perception of the masculinity norms that are held by their peers. Moreover, when they are presented with a more nuanced norm including both agentic and communal traits, they show more communal self-descriptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Chapter 3 studied the role of support in men's communal attitudes and behaviors, and also investigated whether support can buffer negative effects of a potential masculinity threat. Findings indicated that social support only buffers some but not all negative effects of masculinity threat: men who had lower status than their female partner (a believed masculinity threat) and reported low support, hid more of their childcare engagement than those that reported high support. Other outcomes, such as fatherhood identification and expected respect for engaging in childcare were not buffered by support. Finally, we aimed to identify what national level factors are related to the gender gap in young adults' expected share of communal engagement (Chapter 4). Using a large cross-national sample, findings showed that two main factors are independently related to the gender gap in expected share of communal engagement: in countries where women are less represented in management relative to men and in countries that rank lower on general gender development (GDI), there is a larger gender gap in expected share of domestic engagement. Unexpectedly we also found evidence for the gender equality paradox, in that in countries that have more equal wages between men and women there is a gender gap in expected share of communal engagement, that is also present in countries in which there is a larger wage gap. Together, this doctoral dissertation demonstrates the difficult road to gender-related social change for men in communal roles. The findings discussed give first insights into some of the factors that limit and drive male engagement in communal roles.
Publication year:2021
Accessibility:Closed