Religion, Attitudes Towards Working Mothers and Wives' Full-Time Employment

This paper uses ISSP-data from the 1990's to analyze the relationship between religion and attitudes towards working mothers both within and across Austria, West and East Germany, Italy, the UK, and the US. In addition, the sub-sample of husbands is used to examine whether these attitudes along with males' religious involvement affect wives' full-time employment. Reinforcing previous research, Austrians and West Germans are the most conservative individuals across the countries examined, whereas British and US-Americans are the most liberal. Denominational affiliation as well as religious participation correlates positively with traditional attitudes across and, though weaker, within countries. Regarding full-time labor participation of wives, the results suggest for a negative effect of both males' attitudes and religious affiliation. Husbands' frequency of church attendance, however, does not affect the likelihood of wives' full-time employment