Impressionable years: How life course transitions shape gender ideologies across adolescence and young adulthood

This study examines how life course transitions unique to adolescence and young adulthood affect gender ideologies of men and women. After childhood, young people are exposed to new contexts that shape their beliefs in different ways than parents. By integrating a life course perspective with the conceptualisation of gender as a social structure and interest- and exposure-based explanations, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of change mechanisms. It extends the literature by examining the role of age-specific transitions: into vocational training, university, employment, romantic relationships, and cohabitation. Using representative data from the German Family Panel pairfam, I conducted fixed-effects regression analyses with gender interaction terms (n = 2888 individuals; ages 15–27). To account for the multidimensionality of gender ideologies, I used separate attitude items. Results show that attending university is associated with increased support for gender equality in the public and private sphere, particularly for young men. Transitions into vocational training are related to an increase in public sphere egalitarianism, while transitions into employment mostly did not have an additional effect. When they enter heterosexual relationships, results are gender-specific: Women become more traditional regarding maternal employment, while men increase their support for equal housework sharing and both women’s and men’s caretaking roles. With cohabitation, women decrease their support for equal housework sharing. Overall, the findings suggest that young people’s gender ideologies can be subject to persistent change beyond early formative years and that life course transitions may be crucial in shaping them.