An examination of gender differences in Mexican-American attitudes toward family and career roles

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  June, 1998  by Mary Gowan,  Melanie Trevino

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

At the organizational level, conflict may occur between employees because Mexican-American males may feel females do not belong in the workplace. This conflict may be exacerbated if the Mexican-American male is the supervisor. Differential treatment may result for male and female subordinates and even between females without children as opposed to females with children. This differential treatment may take the form of not giving females with children the same opportunity for advancement as is given to other workers. Again, however, remember that the Mexican-American males generally disagreed with the traditional attitudes. Further research is needed, therefore, to address the impact of the significant differences we found on organizational relationships and decisions.

The low level of acculturation among the subjects in this study is somewhat confusing, especially since they generally did not hold traditional Mexican attitudes toward work and family. Rueschenberg and Buriel's (1989) discussion of the bicultural adaptation of Mexican-Americans can shed some light on these results. Biculturalism exists when family functioning in the home reflects a more Mexican orientation while activities outside the home and community reflect a more Euroamerican orientation. Our subjects had retained an important part of their heritage by retaining their Spanish language, but their attitude toward the female's role in the workplace and parental responsibility for child care reflected a more Euroamerican orientation. An investigation focusing specifically on family roles as opposed to the interplay of family and career roles might reveal different patterns of responses, with those responses favoring more traditional Mexican roles by both genders.

We chose this particular group of subjects because we were interested in career and family attitudes of individuals who had already made some choice about career advancement. Voluntary enrollment of the subjects in degree programs designed to increase opportunities within the workplace provide evidence of this choice (Covin & Brush, 1991). Like Covin and Brush (1991), our subjects were college students, most of whom were nontraditional age. Further, our sample can be considered representative of Mexican-Americans in the workforce who are pursuing higher education opportunities. For these subjects, especially the females, a separation from traditional Mexican-American views has already begun. The results might not, however, be generalizable to Mexican-Americans who are not pursuing higher education. We suspect that less educated, or uneducated, Mexican-American females may feel threatened by the breakdown of traditions; however, further research is needed to confirm or disconfirm this hypothesis.

We also undertook the study with the idea of comparing results from our sample with those of Covin and Brush's (1991) sample, hence, our use of a student population. The differences in factor loadings for the items prevent direct comparisons but there is enough similarity between the scales in the two studies for some tentative conclusions to be drawn. Specifically, Covin and Brush (1991) found that males and females tended to disagree with traditional gender and parental roles. However, males were significantly more likely than females to hold traditional attitudes toward gender and parental roles, particularly regarding the female's role in the workplace and responsibility for child care. The similarity of these findings to our results, therefore, suggests that gender is the primary determinant of attitudes toward gender roles rather than ethnicity. A comparison study of Anglo-American and Mexican-Americans is necessary to substantiate these conclusions.