UC Santa Cruz

This study examined factors related to attitudes about gender-role equality in 50 Mexican American married mothers and 33 Mexican American married fathers. Each parent completed the Attitudes Toward Gender Scale (a modified version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale) and other attitude questionnaires. Mothers with communal values who were born in the United States, with higher levels of education, and who placed less value on competition were significantly more likely to have gender-egalitarian attitudes. Fathers who had higher levels of education and who placed less value on competition were significantly more likely to have gender-egalitarian attitudes. The results suggest that Mexican American parents tend to endorse egalitarian gender attitudes as they become more acculturated. Other factors such as language spoken, religion, income, and maternal employment did not significantly account for independent amounts of variance for either mothers' or fathers' gender-egalitarian attitudes.