Doctoral Dissertation Research: Economic Resources, Parental Status and Changing Gender Norms: The Case of Marital Name Choice

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

Through the mid-1990s, gender attitudes related to work became more egalitarian, but gender attitudes related to family, such as marital name choice attitudes, have been slower to change. Many people perceive women who take partner names as selfless, and women who keep their birth names as individualistic. This project will examine how marital name norms may evolve by identifying the conditions under which norm-breakers are given more leniency. The project examines whether women and men who are middle-class or working-class, women and men who are primary breadwinners or secondary breadwinners, and women and men who do or do not plan to have children are viewed differently when they make unconventional marital name decisions, e.g., when women keep their names or when men hyphenate their names. Findings will add nuance to public discourse about marriage equality by showing how the public views unconventional actions, how female and male characteristics shape the consequences they face, and how views of name choice speak to larger public discourses about gender equality. The project includes three survey experiments to examine whether and how economic resources and parental status change the effect that marital name choice has on views of women and men. Respondents will evaluate the female and male likability, dominance, interpersonal hostility, femininity and masculinity, perceived parenting ability and answer open-ended questions assessing their approval of marital name decisions. Qualtrics, an online survey platform that recruits respondents, will collect data for each experiment. The first study will examine whether and, if so, how views of norm-breakers differ based on gender and social class. Hypotheses suggest that middle-class women and men may have more freedom to break the norm because middle-class Americans are viewed more positively than working-class Americans. The second study will examine how perceptions of norm-breakers differ based on relative income, in addition to gender and class. Hypotheses suggest that individuals who are primary earners in their relationships may have more bargaining power and leverage to break norms. The third study examines how views of norm-breakers differ based on parental status, and how this relationship may vary by gender and class. Hypotheses suggest that gender norms will be more rigid when a couple has children, so women may have less flexibility to break name norms if they express plans to have children. Each of the three experiments randomly assigns respondents to conditions that systematically vary the respondent marital name choice (woman takes name of husband, both keep names, both hyphenate), gender (woman, man), as well as class (working/middle-class; Study 1), relative income (woman/man primary earner; Study 2) and parental status (plan/do not plan to have children; Study 3). Findings will inform theories related to gender, family, and changing gender norms in U.S. society. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.