If fathers want their daughters to aspire to potentially high-paying careers like doctors, CEOs, engineers, etc, they should roll up their sleeves and help with some extra house chores, according to a new study.
The study titled, “How fathers treat their domestic duties appears to play a unique gatekeeper role,” conducted by a group of psychologists at the University of British Columbia, Canada, suggests that fathers who perform household chores, like sweeping the floors, cleaning dishes and doing laundry, are more likely to raise daughters who aspire to less-traditional but more lucrative female careers like medicine.
The study adds that how parents share domestic duties plays a key role in shaping the gender attitudes and aspirations of their children, especially daughters, because little girls watch how their parents share household chores and what they observe play a crucial role in shaping their attitude towards gender and work.
However, it is believed that there are other factors that explain why children aspire to certain careers, such as parental occupation and educational background, having strong role models, decent education, inner confidence, household income, the length of time parents spend with their children, the quality of a child’s school and the aspirations of her friends and peer group.
According to psychology researcher and the lead author of the study, Alyssa Croft, who is also a PhD candidate in the university, while mothers’ gender and work equality beliefs were key factors in predicting kids’ attitudes toward gender, the strongest predictor of daughters’ own professional goals and ambitions was their fathers’ approach to household chores.
The study surveyed families at UBC’s Living Lab at Science World. The researchers followed 326 children between the ages of seven and 13, and at least one of their parents. The families were primarily made up of heterosexual couples that live together with their children.
What did surprise the researchers, however, was the link between a father’s role in carrying out chores and their daughter’s career aspirations. Even if fathers spoke out in favour of gender equality, but did not perform the domestic duties, their daughters were still more likely to see themselves pursuing female-dominant careers as nurses, teachers, librarians or stay-at home moms, unlike fathers who walk the talk.
Croft said the study’s findings were an important lesson for dads if they want their daughters to aim for careers outside of the norm for women because parents’ domestic actions may speak louder than words.
The findings further revealed that a more balanced division of household labour among parents might promote greater workforce equality in future generations.
The study believes that young women are ambitious and very much want to be financially independent but are sometimes discouraged by some hurdles, which makes it difficult. While some girls shy away from what they call male subjects in school and end up choosing other subjects that eventually lead to lower paid jobs.
A father-of-two, Ian Douglas, says another factor that inspires girls to be ambitious is not to be treated just as roughly as boys are treated and not with with extremely gentle hands. “The general treatment of girls is quite gentle and they are allowed to stop when it is a bit hard. That is why I don’t know how to say ‘As a girl you can go,’” he said.
He said he splits the household chores with his wife and he thinks it is just as important for his one year-old son to see him do chores, as it is for his four year-old daughter.
Other respondents to the study said it is important for young girls to receive career advice and have access to a range of different role models because children are very reactive to gender roles.
However, a critic of the study, Sean Davis, in his article posted on thefederalist.com, said it is important for parents to let their daughters know their self worth, how much their father loves them and how much they respect their wives. He criticised the authors for not including any real data about the respondent’s family background.
“Dads should do more to help around the house when they are able, but if they want to raise confident daughters, who truly believe they are capable of achieving anything, today’s dads need to focus more on loving their daughters for who they are. A father should be an engaged participant in his daughter’s life, such as giving her a steadfast example of how real men treat women, and not all about simple chores. That may not be science, but it is absolutely common sense,” he said.
But, consultant psychiatrist, Dr. Adeoye Oyewole, says even though such study may not readily be applicable in Africa because of cultural differences, it is possible that when a father does house chores, it gives the daughter a form of positive orientation and security about the home and the opportunity to explore her dreams without fear.
“Daughters want their fathers to have strong leadership ability, financially, emotionally and in terms of giving direction. They appreciate fathers who give their well being top priority, such as prompt attention to their needs, which makes the daughters to give their best because of the assurance of support, instead of the fathers pursuing some secondary selfish desires,” he said.
Oyewole added that when children feel secured, they could explore and be at their best, more so when their mothers are well treated, which enhances their self worth and aspirations.
While a medical practitioner, Dr. Rotimi Adesanya, said there has not been any proven medical evidence or connection between fathers who do house chores and the career choice of their children. “Factors such as environment, economy and social status of the parents are important. Also, children of top executives, senior lecturers and those who occupy senior positions tend to do better because what they see around influence them and the choices they make,” he said.
But another Psychiatrist, Dr. Oluwabunmi Buhari, says males who do house chores are likely to be those who do not earn much salary, hence, they do chores to compensate for the things they were supposed to achieve but could not, thus encouraging their daughters to do better than them.
“Little girls tend to take advantage of equality and successes around them to be at their best rather than the involvement of their fathers in doing house chores. When girls see their mum achieve things that other mothers could not, it is a drive because they may want to put in more effort and achieve more, and not necessarily because the father was doing chores,” she said.
While calling for a furtherance to the study, Buhari said, before such discovery could be generalised, same study should be replicated to know the effect on male children in such houses before it could be tied to the involvement of the fathers in house chores.
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