Students’ Attitudes Towards Family-Work Benefits When Professors Act as a Third Party Influence

Family-work benefits may help to promote a work-life balance, however attitudes towards work-family benefits may not always be positive. The current study examined if professors can act as a third party to influence students’ attitudes towards choosing companies that offer family-work benefits. The current study hypothesized that participant egalitarianism attitudes would predict internship selection and would be moderated by gender (hypothesis 1), family-work benefits attitudes would predict internship selection and would be moderated by gender (hypothesis 2), participants in the experimental condition would be more likely to select an internship with a company that provided family-work benefits (hypothesis 3), and the relationship between condition and internship selection would be moderated by participant gender (hypothesis 4). Participants were undergraduate students who completed surveys (egalitarianism, family-work benefits, & demographic) and were randomized into a condition (professor support for family-work benefits or not). Participants ranked possible internships with varying levels of family-work benefits. Results showed that women scored significantly higher than men on egalitarianism (p < .001) and family-work benefits (p <.001). However, the relationship between egalitarianism/perceived fairness of family-work benefits and internship ranking did not vary by gender. Finally the experimental and control conditions did not significantly predict internship selection. While no significant differences were found with respect to the hypotheses, the results may nevertheless yield insights into both students' pre-existing positive attitudes towards family-work benefits and the problems of not utilizing those benefits.