2009 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 110-121
The purpose of this research was to investigate how husbands' attitudes toward maternal employment predicted their wives' working course (the course of working as full-timers continuously, the course of working as part-timers after their retirement, the course of working as housewives after their retirement). Subjects were 680 pairs of childrearing married couples who have 3-4 year-old children. The main results were as follows. First, factor analysis of the husbands’ attitudes toward maternal employment produced four factors, “approval for maternal employment for their wives themselves”, “approval for maternal employment for economical reason”, “objection to maternal employment for priority of family role”, “objection to maternal employment for their children”. Second, husbands whose mother had working experience rated the factor of “approval for maternal employment for their wives themselves” significantly higher, compared to husbands whose mother had no working experience. Third, husbands’ attitude toward maternal employment had significant association with their wives' working course. The higher husbands rated the two “approval” factors, the more the wives tended to choose the course of working as full-timer continuously, the course of working as part-timer after their retirement, the course of working as housewives in this order. The rates of two “objection” factors did not predict between part-timer and housewives. Discriminant analysis using four factors suggested that the factor “approval for maternal employment for their wives themselves” had the strongest influence on the courses of their wives’ continuously working as full-timer.
