Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Self-esteem in women--United States; Wages--Women--United States; Families--Psychological aspects; Self-esteem in women; Wages--Women; United States;

Abstract

Several reasons for why the gender wage gap exists have been proposed. These include differences in education between men and women, differences in career paths, and bias against women in the workplace. Another potential explanation is that women simply expect to earn less than men do and they enter a job with lower pay expectations than men. This lower pay expectation may result in lower actual pay for women because they will be less likely to engage in pay seeking behaviors, such as asking for higher pay at hire and aggressively seeking raises than men. The present study was done to investigate the role that family dynamics have on women's pay expectations. Specifically, the study was done to examine the influence of parental involvement, socioeconomic status of the family, and presence of siblings on women's pay expectations. In addition, self-esteem, locus of control, and positive and negative affect were examined as potential mediators in the relationship between the three antecedents (parental involvement, socioeconomic status, presence of siblings) and the consequence (pay expectations). One-hundred-and-forty-six Caucasian women from an undergraduate Introductory to Psychology course filled out several questionnaires. As hypothesized, the results of the study indicate that the socioeconomic status of the families the women grew up in had a significant influence on their pay expectations. Parental involvement and presence of siblings were not found to significantly influence pay expectations. In addition, self esteem, locus of control, and positive and negative affect did not function as mediators.

Year of Submission

2001

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Michael Gasser

Second Advisor

Adam Butler

Third Advisor

Helen Harton

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2001

Object Description

1 PDF file (85 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Included in

Psychology Commons

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