Embracing gender equality: Gender-role attitudes among secondgeneration immigrants in Norway

Abstract

BACKGROUND The consequences of immigration for gender equality is of high public concern. A key issue is to what extent the children of immigrants adopt the more gender-egalitarianwork–family attitudes and practices prevalent in the societies where they have grownup.OBJECTIVEThis study examines the support for gender-equal work–family practices amongsecond-generation immigrants in Norway, a country with high gender-equalityambitions. We analyze attitudes toward the role of both genders in the family and thelabor market among descendants of Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, Turkish, and Pakistaniorigin, and make comparisons with the majority population and same-age immigrants.METHODCross-sectional data (N = 1,049/586 for descendants/immigrants) comes from theSurvey on living conditions among persons with an immigrant background 2016 inNorway.RESULTSSecond-generation immigrants embrace the ideas of the working mother, sharedbreadwinning, and shared care to the same extent as the majority population, butexpress somewhat more support for the homemaker role. There are few consistentdividing lines among descendants, although women express more gender-egalitarianattitudes than men, and men of Pakistani origin are less supportive than other maledescendants. Religiosity and the composition of the friendship network matter for somegroups. Descendants express slightly more gender-egalitarian work–family attitudesthan same-age immigrants.CONTRIBUTIONThis study reveals that second-generation immigrants in Norway express overwhelmingsupport for the dual-earner/dual-carer family model, suggesting that exposure to agender-egalitarian institutional and cultural context is important in shaping gender-roleattitudes post migration