Fathers who want their daughters to aim for prestigious or non-traditional professions should start by doing the dishes, a new study suggests.
The research, to be published in Psychological Science, finds that fathers need to do more than just speak about gender equality. They need to demonstrate equality in household chores.
The study, which involved a survey of 326 children aged between 7 and 13 years old and at least one of their parents, calculated the division of chores and paid labour and determined the career stereotypes that participants identified with, their gender and work attitudes, as well as career aspirations.
It found that fathers who performed household chores are more likely to raise daughters that branch out from wanting to pursue traditionally female jobs and aimed for higher paying roles.
Alyssa Croft, lead author of the study said the research suggested, “Girls grow up with broader career goals in households where domestic duties are shared more equitably by parents. How fathers treat their domestic duties appears to play a unique gatekeeper role.”
“This study is important because it suggests that achieving gender equality at home may be one way to inspire young women to set their sights on careers from which they have traditionally been excluded,” she added.
The study found that while the mother’s own gender equality beliefs were key factors in predicting her children’s attitudes about gender, the strongest predictor of a daughter’s professional ambitions was based on her father’s approach to household chores.
So even when fathers publicly endorsed gender equality, if they didn’t take up an equal split of domestic labour at home, their daughters were more likely to envision themselves in a traditionally female-dominated career field.