PRI Family & Gender Working Group

PRI Family and Gender Working Group

The Family & Gender Working Group is a vibrant community with research interests across all aspects of family demography and gender disparities, including union formation and transitions, family inequalities (gender, race, class, etc.), and family health and wellbeing.

Jane Lankes

"Negotiating 'Impossible' Ideals: Latent Classes of Intensive Mothering in the United States."

Abstract: Mothers often face immense pressure to devote significant physical and mental effort toward childrearing, referred to as intensive mothering. At the same time, many mothers do not follow the actions or beliefs that gender norms suggest they should. It remains unclear how mothers holistically approach intensive parenting across many different facets. Using the 2014 Child Development Supplement from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I examined how a sample of mothers fell into intensive mothering profiles, or latent classes, and how class membership varied by demographic characteristics. Results showed four underlying latent classes of intensive motherhood: Relaxed Mothers (33 percent), High Investors (25 percent), Essentialist Mothers (22 percent), and Strained Mothers (20 percent). No group was intensive across all measures, contrary to common narratives in previous research and theory. Class membership varied by several characteristics, including education, age, income, race, single parenthood, and employment. By revealing how mothers are selectively intensive, this study expands on the ways mothers simultaneously “do” and “undo” gender norms in their parenting, as well as the sociodemographics that may predict these patterns.

Information: Léa Pessin, lzp31@psu.edu