When mothers do it all: gender-role norms, women's employment, and fertility intentions in post-industrial societies.

This article examines how multidimensional gender-role ideologies influence the relationship between mothers' employment and their intentions to have a second child in 25 European countries. It identifies four distinct gender-role ideology classes—liberal egalitarianism, egalitarian familism, flexible egalitarianism, and traditionalism—and finds that the prevalence of egalitarian familism, which supports women's employment while emphasizing their primary caregiving role, is associated with lower second-birth intentions among full-time employed mothers. This negative association persists even after controlling for family policy arrangements such as paid leave and public childcare, suggesting that conflicting cultural expectations about women's dual roles in work and family independently dampen fertility intentions. The study highlights the importance of considering nuanced, multidimensional gender norms rather than a simple traditional-to-egalitarian continuum when analyzing fertility behaviors in post-industrial societies.