Gender roles and the nature of heterosex have been clearly outlined in the literature as having a significant impact on both individuals and societies. Some debate has existed in the field of psychology as to the nature and origin of gender and gender roles. Furthermore, it is believed that the current South African context offers a rich source of material for debate and discussion around which social factors are impacting on gender role development and how. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the perceived origins of such gender roles the study explores qualitative accounts of the various social elements of both South African and international origin which individuals perceive as impacting on gender role ideology. Individual interviews were conducted with 8 participants (4 males and 4 females) between the ages of 20 and 30, who were either living with their partner at the time of the study or had co-habited before. While all social constructs identified in the study can be understood as impacting internalised notions of gender roles some factors appear to play a more significant role than others in creating knowledge around egalitarian roles rather than perpetuating less contemporary views or gender inequality. In particular culture, religion and the family were found to be sights of perpetuation of more traditional roles, while globalisation, education, media, work and urbanisation appeared to be significant constructs in creating more egalitarian gender role ideologies. Recommendations for future research include a closer examination of these relationships within broader realms of class, religion and age.

This thesis investigates the experiences of Malaysian dual-career couples combining career and family. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to collect data from 23 dual-career couples. The findings indicate that being in a dual-career relationship impacts upon how they perceive the family’s provider role; career priorities; how decisions are made; and how family work is divided. The experiences described by the participants reflect their gender role ideologies and the salience of family and work roles. The results also reveal how interaction between partners can shape their ideologies and role salience, in addition to how religious and cultural values influence their gender attitudes. A number of challenges faced by the couples are identified. The supports and strategies that help them cope with housework, childcare and work demands are also critiqued. The thesis also highlights the implications of the government and organization’s policies and support to the couples and the kind of policies and support that the couples would like to see introduced. The similarities and differences between dual-career couples in the Malaysian context compared with the West are explored. Additionally, the findings extend the use of gender role ideology and role salience theories to develop an understanding of the couples’ experiences. A summarizing framework of their experiences based on the analysis is presented. In summary, the thesis firstly fills a gap in the dual-career couples’ literature which has previously focused upon Western couples only. Secondly, the study has examines the utility of gender role ideology and role salience as a framework to understand the context of dual-career couples. Thirdly, the current research also makes an important methodological contribution in a Malaysian context. Finally, it provides some recommendations for the government and organizations in Malaysia in terms of policies that promote work-family balance and gender equality for dual-career women.

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There is evidence that household division of labor is associated with marital satisfaction among Chinese populations. However, little research has compared different Chinese societies, as well as non-rural and rural regions. This study compared the division of household labor, and its association with marital satisfaction, between China and Taiwan, between non-rural and rural regions, and between males and females using data from a large, multinational study of countries in East Asia. The moderating effect of gender role ideology was examined as a potential moderating variable, as well. Overall, division of household labor was significantly associated with marital satisfaction. However, gender role ideology was not a significant moderator. Invariance testing revealed no group differences, including China and Taiwan, rural and non-rural, and male and female, in the relationship between division of household labor and marital satisfaction. Additional analysis indicated that gender role ideology was a significant moderator for females in rural China.

The aim of the present study was to develop two conceptual frameworks / that are antecedents of family-to-work conflict and enhancement in the family domian, and antecedents of work-to-family conflict and enhancement in the work domain / and to test the relationships that are proposed by these frameworks. A pilot study was conducted with 73 career people to investigate the psychometric qualities of the adapted or constructed measures. The main study was conducted with 293 married career people. Results supported some of the hypotheses. In the family-to-work framework, gender role ideology, family salience, perceptions of family/home demands and core self-ealuations predicted family-to-work conflict. Furthermore, direct effects of family salience and core self-evaluations on family-to-work enhancement were found. In the work-to-family framework, work salience predicted both work-to-family conflict and work-to-family enhancement. In addition, core self evaluations moderated the relationship between subjective work demands and work-to-family conflict and between subjective work demands and work-tofamily enhancement.

The Gender Role Stress paradigm asserts that individuals experience distress when they cannot or do not want to live up to the roles prescribed to their gender, and this stress is related to Gender Role Ideology. Within American Christian culture, gender roles are socialized and shaped according to tradition and the Bible. To investigate the intersection of these factors, Christian adults will respond to questionnaires about their Gender Role Ideology, Gender Role Stress, and religiosity. Significant positive correlational relationships between Gender Role Ideology and Gender Role Stress, between religiosity and Gender Role Ideology, and between religiosity and Gender Role Stress are expected for both men and women. However, Gender Role Ideology is expected to partially mediate any relationship found between religiosity and Gender Role Stress. This will imply that for Christian individuals, religiosity and Christianity are related to Gender Role Stress but this relationship is dependent on an individual’s beliefs about gender roles. Implications and further directions are discussed, including spiritual gender role negotiation and the sanctification paradigm.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Women’s roles in the workplace have increased but expectations within their family roles have not diminished. Work-family conflict (WFC) occurs when work and family roles are mutually incompatible in some respect. Mothers’ representations of their own particular personal contexts seem largely absent from the cultural iconography and so motivations for the study included bringing to light the phenomenological experiences of contemporary fulltime working mothers by developing a rich description of their lived experience. These ideas have not been widely explored in South Africa. The study aimed to explore how full-time working mothers experience work-family conflict, including how they conceptualise their dual roles, how salient each role is to them, the factors in the work and family domains which are particularly pertinent for them and any coping strategies they might employ. The study used as a theoretical framework the model of work-family conflict developed by Greenhaus and Beutell in 1985, together with an extension from the work of Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering and Semmer in 2011. The study used a phenomenological methodology. Eight middle-class, professional, full-time working mothers from the Southern Suburbs and City Bowl of Cape Town were interviewed individually, using a semi-structured interview schedule. A qualitative paradigm was used to analyse the interviews. Emotional and cognitive repercussions of WFC were many, including feelings of unsustainability. Some participants acknowledged a need to compromise in order to cope, but the current normative messages are not conducive to this. Participants aspire, not to stop working, because the role of worker is regarded as important for self-definition, but to reduce their overall load. The generalisability of this study was reduced because of its localised ambit, its small size and some similarities in socio-economic profile among the participants. Future studies could further explore the choices or strategies which are successful in reducing WFC.