Occupational conditions, gender, and parental behaviors and values

This thesis was to explore the relationships between occupational conditions and parental behaviors and values. The data set for this thesis were taken from the 1988 National Survey of Families and Households, which includes a national crosssectional sample of 13,017 primary respondents. The subsamples used here were limited to married or cohabiting white families with children under 18 years old.

Pearson’s r and one-way analysis of variance were used to examine the zero-order relationships among all the independent and dependent variables. Multiple regression analyses were adopted to present the relative importance of independent variables in predicting different aspects of parental childrearing practices.

Findings from bivariate and multivariate analyses show that different dimensions of work-related variables examined in this thesis, such as occupational socioeconomic status, work hours and schedules, job satisfaction and employment status, are associated with different aspects of parental behaviors and values. Gender is found to be a very important factor in predicting parental involvement, negative responses and values. In general, these work-related variables explain limited variance of parental child-rearing styles.

Based on the findings of the study, implications for academic research on the relationships between parental behaviors and values and working conditions were also discussed in the thesis.