Dads Who Cook, Wash Plates Raise More Ambitious Daughters – Study Reveals

I hope all the fathers and aspiring fathers on
here learn a thing or two from this. 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.