How individuals perceive raising children varies across countries. Researchers seeking to explain this have tended to focus on variation in family policies across countries, arguing that having children is perceived more negatively in terms of cost and disturbance to parents’ freedom and careers in countries where less policy support for families is provided. In this study, I add to the literature on attitudes toward child-raising by focusing on a key feature of the cultural context: societal gender-role norms. I posit that greater normative expectations in favor of women's “dual” responsibilities of being wage earners and devoted mothers are associated with more negative perceptions of parenthood. Using internationally comparative data drawn from 27 OECD countries, I find that in countries where the dual role expectation is established as a dominant cultural norm for women, people are more likely to perceive children as a burden. This pattern is particularly pronounced among women, who must contend with the dual expectations of contributing to family income while assuming the responsibility of primary caregiver. Furthermore, I find that between-country differences in the normative context play a larger role than the policy context in explaining variation in the perceived costs/disruptiveness of children across countries.

中文翻译：

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当孩子成为负担时：了解对为人父母的负面看法的规范来源

不同国家的人对养育孩子的看法各不相同。试图解释这一现象的研究人员倾向于关注各国家庭政策的差异，他们认为，在为家庭提供的政策支持较少的国家，生孩子在成本和对父母自由和职业的干扰方面被认为更加负面。在这项研究中，我通过关注文化背景的一个关键特征：社会性别角色规范，对有关育儿态度的文献进行了补充。我认为，对女性作为工资收入者和尽职母亲的“双重”责任的更大规范期望与对为人父母的更负面看法有关。使用来自 27 个 OECD 国家的国际比较数据，我发现，在双重角色期望被确立为女性主导文化规范的国家，人们更有可能将孩子视为一种负担。这种模式在女性中尤其明显，她们必须应对双重期望，即为家庭收入做出贡献，同时承担主要照顾者的责任。此外，我发现，在解释各国儿童感知成本/破坏性的差异时，规范背景下的国家间差异比政策背景发挥着更大的作用。