1. Intergenerational Transmission of Work Values: A Meta-Analytic Review Ekin Seçinti, Zeynep Cemalcılar, Nebi Sümer, Murat Kezer
INTRODUCTION
Recent statistics suggested that globally, percent of youth (aged between 15 – 24 years) is unemployed (OECD, 2016).
Enhancing economic self-sufficiency and motivation for entrepreneurship are the most effective panacea for the global problem of rising youth unemployment.
Micro-level (intrapersonal) characteristics markedly impact young people’s participation in the labor market, as well as structural reasons such as educational system.
In this regard, work values have been found to be an important micro-level characteristic in this context (e.g., Sortheix, Chow & Salmela-Aro 2015).
Work values can act as guiding principles on individuals’ work-related outcomes, decision making processes, and job satisfaction (Hitlin, 2006; Jin & Rounds, 2012; Ros et al., 1999).
Socialization and enculturation are two key processes that shape individuals’ values from early ages on (Schönpflug, 2001).
Parents take a major part in the socialization of their offspring.
AIM
In this meta-analytic review, we investigate the extent to which youths’ current work values are influenced by their parents’ work values.
Research Questions examined in this meta- analysis
1. What is the level of similarity of parent - child work values?
2. How are parent work values associated with child self-sufficiency?
In addition to parents’ work values, we also consider how parenting influences children’s self-sufficiency.
3. How is parenting associated with child work values?
4. How is parenting associated with child self- sufficiency?
Finally, we identified and tested the most commonly studied moderators of intergenerational value transmission as: the socio-cultural and relational context, the developmental stage of the youth and gender composition of the parent – child dyad.
Raw correlations are converted to Fisher’s Z scale to stabilize the variance and performed the analyses using the transformed values.
The heterogeneity of effect sizes has been tested using the Cochrane Q and I² statistics to examine and quantify the amount of observed variance accounted for by true heterogeneity rather than sampling error.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Effect Size of Meta-Analyses
Sample characteristics
A total of 28 studies conducted in 12 different countries totaling to 25,746 participants met the criteria to be included in the meta-analysis.
Overview of Studies Included in the Meta-Analysis (k = 28)
Parental work values (both maternal and paternal) had positive association with offspring work values (r = .19, 95% CI [.14, .25] p < .001).
There was only one study that reported a significant positive association between parent work values and offspring economic self-sufficiency.
Parenting (both maternal and paternal) had a positive association with offspring work values (r = .13, 95% CI [.08, .17]; p < .001) and a positive, yet small association with offspring economic self-sufficiency (r = .04, 95% CI [.02, .06], p < .001).
No moderating effects of socio-cultural context and gender were found
Only offspring age moderated the strength of father-child work values (b = -.16, p = .002), resulting in a decrease in similarity as the offspring got older.
The funnel plot symmetry techniques and Duval and Tweedie’s (2000) trim and fill analyses suggested no potential publication bias
Finally, our systematic review also revealed that, despite its theoretical and practical importance, social science literature is scarce in comprehensive and comparative empirical studies that investigate parent-child work value similarity.
METHODS
Data Synthesis and Statistical Analyses
All analyses were carried out using metafor and MAc packages for R v.3.2 (R Core Team, 2013).
Meta-analysis using random-effects model with restricted maximum likelihood estimator has been carried out separately for each outcome.
The effect size r was designated as the main outcome metric. When not reported in the primary study, we estimated correlation coefficients from available descriptive statistics using standard computational techniques for continuous data.
For studies that reported multiple effect sizes from the same sample, we aggregated effect sizes using the MAc package available in R.
Included Measures and Coding for Variables Used in the Meta-Analysis
Syntax for Search Terms Used in the Meta-Analysis
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement n° – CUPESSE (Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency and Entrepreneurship).