PhD – Why don’t boys care about caring?
Research on children’s gendered career aspirations: the role of beliefs about agency and communion
In the Netherlands, girls and boys could, in theory, pursue any career they desire. Despite this, many occupations remain heavily gendered. Most pilots are male, while most primary school teachers are female, for example. Children’s career aspirations reflect this division. Why do boys not aspire to traditionally feminine careers?
Faye Chadwick-Brown, a PhD candidate under the supervision of dr. Joyce Endendijk, dr. Melissa Vink, Prof. dr. Anneloes van Baar and Prof. dr. Belle Derks, is investigating this question. To this end, she explores how children’s gender beliefs about agency (e.g., being assertive and tough) and communion (e.g., being caring and social) affect their future career aspirations. Occupations where men are overly represented (e.g., engineers, construction employees) are still highly associated with agency, whereas occupations where women are overly represented (e.g., nurses, teachers) are highly associated with communion. For this reason, children’s beliefs about how agentic and communal they are themselves, as well as how agentic and communal boys and girls are in general, may shape their career aspirations.
In this project, we will also consider the role of parents and peers in shaping children’s beliefs and aspirations. Parents may act as role models, providing examples for children of how men and women divide paid and unpaid labour. Parents can also actively socialise their children into different gender roles, for example through the tasks they ask the child to help with at home. In this way, parents may influence children’s beliefs about who is agentic and who is communal. In addition, contact with peers may encourage children to see boys and girls as distinctly different, or as more similar to each other, influencing stereotypes about agency and communion.
Based on the findings, this project aims to better understand why boys show limited interest in communal careers, and how they can be encouraged to consider these careers as options for their adult selves. Addressing this issue is crucial. Despite existing research focused on encouraging girls into traditionally masculine science and technology careers, research on boys and traditionally feminine careers is limited. Not only would men and boys benefit personally from more involvement in paid and unpaid caring roles, but the Netherlands and many other countries urgently need more citizens trained in caring work to fill vacancies in traditionally feminine, communal careers. With this research, Faye also hopes to contribute to a society where children are less constrained by stereotypes, and feel truly able to pursue any career that suits their talents and interests.