EFFECTS OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT CHILD-REARING PATTERN ON COLLEGE-STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS OF A MOTHER AND HER CHILD

This study examined college students' perceptions of different maternal employment-childrearing patterns: continuous employment after 6 weeks of maternity leave, interrupted employment until the child was in first grade, or nonemployment after the child's birth. Primarily Caucasian lower-middle-class volunteers (n = 200) from a public university read a description of a mother who followed one of these patterns. Results showed that the mother who was continuously employed was rated as less communal and was less positively evaluated than either the mother who interrupted her employment or the nonemployed mother. Further, her child was expected to experience more negative outcomes than the children of either of the other two mothers. Discussion focuses on social role theory and college students' role expectations.