Gender differences in young adults’ inclination to sacrifice career opportunities in the future for family reasons: comparative study with university students from Nairobi, Madrid, and Reykjavik.

• Published in: Journal of Youth Studies
• Main Authors: Fernández Cornejo, José Andrés, Escot Mangas, Lorenzo, Kabubo-Mariara, Jane, Kinyanjui Kinuthia, Bethuel, Björk Eydal, Guðný, Bjarnason, Tomas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2016
• Subjects: Familia; Microeconomía; Educación; Enseñanza universitaria; Iceland
• Online Access: https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/56297/; https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/56297/1/Fern%C3%A1ndez-Cornejo-Gender%20differences.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2015.1083957

This article addresses the question of to what extent young people show an inclination to accept some sacrifice in their career progression in the future in order to reach a better work–family balance. Data come from a survey conducted among a sample of 2383 university students who attended three universities: University of Nairobi, University of Iceland, and Complutense University of Madrid. After building a set of indicators about career and family involvement aspirations of respondents, and after conducting a statistical and regression analysis, this research shows that young women (on average) still have a greater predisposition than young men to make sacrifices in the future in their working careers in order to achieve a better work–family balance. Moreover, having a high degree of leadership aspirations and belonging to an egalitarian household tend to reduce the inclination to sacrifice career opportunities, whereas having a high inclination to be involved in childcare in the future and having the perception of a future work–family conflict tend to increase it. Gender attitudes have a differential effect on female and male students: having traditional gender attitudes tends to increase the inclination to sacrifice career opportunities in the case of female students and reduce it in the case of male students.