Implicit attitudes towards gender roles as a factor of subjective career success of women

Abstract

Attitudes of women to gender roles, based on the dominant gender ideology in society, which determines normative behaviors for men and women, are reflected in women’s involvement in career and shaping career paths. The mechanism of the relationship of attitudes with the subjective career success of women is little studied. The goal of the study is exploring the mechanism that mediates the relationship of implicit and explicit attitudes towards gender roles and subjective career success of women. The study involved employed women at the age of 18 to 65 years (N = 91). Four mechanisms were distinguished: career manageability, fear of backlash, work centrality and career planning, presumably mediating the relationship of implicit and explicit attitudes of women towards gender roles with subjective career success. The results showed that implicit and explicit attitudes towards gender roles are not directly related to subjective career success and career satisfaction among women. The mechanism of the relationship of explicit gender roles attitudes and subjective career success turned out to be career planning. Only career planning was correlated with explicit egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles and subjective career success and career satisfaction. Moreover, women with egalitarian explicit attitudes rated career manageability lower and career planning higher than women with traditional attitudes towards gender roles. Subjective career success is correlated with the work centrality and career planning, but not with career manageability or fear of backlash. Implicit attitudes towards gender roles are not correlated with any of the 4 mechanisms. The model, in which career planning acts as a mechanism for connecting explicit attitudes and subjective success, was tested using SEM and showed compliance with the data. Thus, career planning is a mechanism to mediates the correlation of attitudes towards gender roles and subjective career success, career satisfaction.