Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Parental gender bias is critical for the early socialization of gender inequality, and it plays a vital role in women’s personality and development. Although the labor market continues to improve and develop, women’s career development still faces obstacles from gender bias. Gender inequality at home continues to constrain gender equality at work. However, most current research about the influence of parental gender bias focuses on girls’ early childhood and adolescence, neglecting its profound effects on women in the workplace. Identifying the underlying factors that influence women’s career choices and performance is key to promoting gender equality in the workplace. Drawing on the self-concept theory, this study aims to examine the serial mediating roles of self-esteem and career compromise in the relationship between parental gender bias and female employees’ workplace in-role performance and creativity. We tested our hypothesis using multi-source data collected from female college students recruited from a university in northern China. We collected our data in three separate waves to reduce the impact of common method bias. In the first wave survey (Wave 1), female college students were asked to provide information on their demographics, parental gender bias, and self-esteem. Once they secured a job (Wave 2), the participants were asked to provide information on their career compromise. Three months after they were officially hired after passing the probationary period (Wave 3), female employees were asked to rate the perceived gender bias at work, and supervisors evaluated their in-role performance and creativity. Finally, we reviewed 225 valid matching questionnaires. We used structural equation modeling in Mplus 8 for data analyses and hypotheses testings. The results showed that: (1) parental gender bias was negatively related to women’s self-esteem; (2) self-esteem was negatively related to women’s career compromise; (3) self-esteem mediated the relationship between parental gender bias and women’s career compromise; (4) career compromise was negatively related to women’s in-role performance/creativity; (5) women’s self-esteem and career compromise serially mediated the relationship between parental gender bias and in-role performance/creativity. Our findings contribute to the current literature in several ways. First, this study focuses on the more fundamental factor of early socialization−parental gender bias, to identify antecedents that prevent women from becoming high-performing and creative employees. This temporal independence allows for a clearer causal relationship and expands the research perspective on female career development barriers. Existing literature has also emerged on the influence of parents on individuals upon entry into the workplace. Our study complements the literature on the influence of upbringing on workplace performance. Second, this study reveals that parental gender bias negatively affects women’s workplace performance through self-esteem and career compromise, and that there is no difference in the effects of fathers and mothers. In doing so, we provide a two-fold expansion and addition to the literature on the far-reaching effects of parenting styles. On the one hand, this study provides a useful addition to previous studies that have mainly focused on maternal gender bias. On the other hand, our study expands the influence of fathers’ parenting on children after they enter the workplace. Third, external (parental gender bias) and internal (self-esteem) factors are combined to identify women’s career decision- making mechanisms in response to previous scholars’ call. Furthermore, this study explores in-role performance and creativity, which are more conducive to women’s career development, enriching previous research on the negative outcomes of career compromise.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-02-20
Abstract：
Parental gender bias is the key to the early socialization of gender inequality, which plays a vital role in women’s personality and development. Although the labor market is constantly improving and developing, women’s career development still faces obstacles from gender bias. Gender inequality at home continues to constrain gender equality at work. However, most current research about the influence of parental gender bias focuses on girls’ early childhood and adolescence, neglecting its far-reaching influence affecting women in the workplace. Identifying the underlying factors that influence women’s career choices and performance is key to promoting gender equality in the workplace.
Drawing on the self-concept theory, the present study aims to examine the serial mediating roles of self-esteem and career compromise in the relationship between parental gender bias and female employees’ workplace in-role performance and creativity.
We tested our hypothesis using multi-source data collected from female college students recruited from a university in northern China. We collected our data in three separate waves to reduce the impact of common method bias. In the first wave survey (Wave 1), female college students were asked to provide information on their demographics, parental gender bias and self-esteem. After they landed a job (Wave 2), they were asked to provide information on their career compromise. Three months after they were officially hired after passing the probationary period (Wave 3), female employees were asked to rate the perceived gender bias at work, and supervisors evaluated their in-role performance and creativity and. Finally we got 225 valid matching questionnaires.
We used structural equation modeling in Mplus 8 for data analyses and hypotheses testings. The results showed that: (1) parental gender bias was negatively related to women’s self-esteem; (2) self-esteem was negatively related to women’s career compromise; (3) self-esteem mediated the relationship between parental gender bias and women’s career compromise; (4) career compromise was negatively related to women’s in-role performance/creativity; (5) women’s self-esteem and career compromise serially mediated the relationship between parental gender bias and in-role performance/creativity.
Our findings contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this study focuses on the more fundamental factor of early socialization--parental gender bias, to identify antecedents that prevent women from becoming high-performing and creative employees. This temporal independence allows for a clearer causal relationship and expands the research perspective on female career development barriers. The existing literature has also emerged on the influence of parents on individuals upon entry into the workplace. Our study enriches the literature on the influence of upbringing on workplace performance. Second, this study reveals that parental gender bias negatively affects women’s workplace performance through self-esteem, career compromise, and that there is no difference in the effects of fathers and mothers. In doing so, we provide a two-fold expansion and addition to the literature on the far-reaching effects of parenting styles. On the one hand, it provides a useful addition to previous studies that have mainly focused on maternal gender bias. On the other hand, it expands the influence of fathers’ parenting to children after they enter the workplace. Third, combining external (parental gender bias) and internal (self-esteem) factors to identify women’s career decision-making mechanisms in response to previous scholars’ call. Furthermore, this study focuses on in-role performance and creativity that are more conducive to women’s career development, enriching previous research on the negative outcomes of career compromise.
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