Traditional Gender Role Attitudes and Maternal Gatekeeping: A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

SYNOPSIS: Objective. This meta-analytic review examined the link between traditional gender role attitudes and maternal gatekeeping with gatekeeping dimension (gate opening or gate closing), parent gender, parent age, and publication year as moderators. Design. A systematic literature search identified 18 independent studies (N = 7,860) that met inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software. Results. The association between traditional gender role attitudes and maternal gatekeeping was very small in size and did not reach statistical significance, r =.073, 95% CI = [−.01,.15]. Moderation analyses were conducted to test the roles of gatekeeping dimension, parent gender, parent age, and publication year in the association. The association between traditional gender role attitudes and gate closing was significant and positive, whereas there was no association between traditional gender role attitudes and gate opening. The difference between mothers and fathers was not significant, nor did reported mean parent age appear to influence the magnitude of the association. Results were robust to the influence of publication bias. The distribution of effect sizes was symmetric, and the correlations between traditional gender role attitudes and maternal gatekeeping varied (−.29–.54), suggesting that the study results were heterogeneous, I2 = 91. Conclusions. Theoretically, the association between traditional gender role attitudes and maternal gatekeeping is not as strong as is often assumed; hence, there are likely other social, familial, and individual factors associated with maternal gatekeeping. Future research to advance the literature on predictors of maternal gatekeeping is needed.