Parenthood and the communication of values

Annual Report 2024 – Our research foci

Values are passed on to children through parents, the extended family, friends, and society. Ulf Zölitz and Moritz Daum explain how research about child development needs to combine the micro-perspective – such as the individual parent-child relationship – with the macro-perspective that considers the societal structure and its impact on children.

Statements like “What is love?” and “I consider my child an equal partner in their educational journey” express parental worldviews and values, which shape how parents raise their children. The transmission of values within the family has always been an essential element of raising children. But what do parents actually pass on? What do they mean when they speak of love, autonomy, being a good citizen, or authority? Moritz Daum, Professor of Developmental Psychology, and Ulf Zölitz, Professor of Economics, sat down for this article to discuss their findings on the transfer of values, world views, and images from parents to their offspring.

When speaking of values, the question of methodology becomes crucial. Ulf Zölitz and his team conducted the World Parenting Survey, asking 47,000 parents in 42 countries about their parenting styles and values. The questions focused on whether a parent explains why certain rules are in place or not and how much time a parent spends with their child each week. Such a descriptive approach has the advantage of probing parents’ values and parenting styles more directly, without getting hung up too much on terminology.

One result of Ulf Zölitz’s research makes intuitive sense: there are differences in parenting styles, world views, or values across different countries. He stresses that the environment in which a child is raised is an important factor in the development of a child’s values and world­view. In more autocratic countries, values such as compliance and obedience are more critical for success
in life than in democratic countries. Consequently, parents in autocratic countries may have a more authoritarian parenting style than parents in democratic countries. Similarly, the economic situation and the development of welfare systems also impact parental values and world views. In some countries, children are still considered a form of retirement plan.

After the Second World War, the development of “attachment theory” led to a major shift in the richer countries regarding the concept of what children are and what they need. It is now widely understood and recognized that children need a benevolent and caring relationship with their caregivers. Understanding this has led to a shift in parenting styles from a pure focus on upbringing, that is, feeding and housing a child, to an approach that extends the focus to a child’s emotional and psychological needs.

Both Zölitz and Daum stress that although differences were observed between different cultures and countries, the variability of results within the same country was much greater. “There is no ‘Swiss’ approach to education, values, and worldviews,” says Zölitz. “Just ask parents from the French-speaking part of Switzerland and compare them to those from the German-speaking part, and you will see big differences,” confirms Daum.

What intrigued them both were global differences across parents. Although economists usually have a macro-perspective on results, both researchers emphasize the importance of combining this with a closer look at family level factors. Looking at parenting couples from different cultures or countries confirms this: “Ultimately,” says Zölitz, “a parent’s personality determines values, parenting styles, and world views. Rather than reducing personality to pathological traits or political opinions, it is more important to understand how a parent reacts in specific situations.”

After looking at the parents’ reactions, some noticeable observations were made. Parents who had their children at a younger age (in their 20s) are more permissive and less authoritarian in their parenting style. Parents who had their children in their 30s or even later are more balanced in their parenting styles. Instead of sticking to only one style, they tend to pick from a variety of styles.
The World Parenting Survey also found that older parents spend more time with their children than younger ones. Both observations are likely linked to older parents having a better economic situation and a more mature personality. As Moritz Daum points out, parental values and approaches can vary significantly from child to child. Parents with several children react and adjust to their children’s individual behavior and biological constitution. For example, suppose one child is very calm, cheerful, and has no major health issues in their early years. In that case, parents will act and react differently to this child than to another child who may cry a lot because of gastric problems or who is particularly affectionate and needs a lot of physical contact. Such small differences can alter parents’ views on education and shift the importance of values for one child compared to the other.

Shifting focus from the parents to the children, the researchers discussed the influence of external childcare, such as daycare centers, and the child’s gender. Both seem to play a role in shaping children’s values. Moritz Daum explains that by attending a daycare center, a child is exposed to new sets of values and worldviews. Typically, children spend the first two to three years of their lives predominantly at home and are thus shaped by their parents’ environment. By attending a daycare center, children interact with adults and other children who have different values and worldviews. These interactions ultimately challenge children and can positively and negatively impact them. For Daum, the most important factor when talking about external childcare is the quality of the service provided. “External childcare is not good or bad per se. It very much depends on the quality of the institution to which I entrust my child.”
The gender of a child seems to have a significant influence on the parenting style and transferred values, too. The World Parenting Survey shows that, on average, parents spend more time with their sons than with their daughters. The time investment differs strikingly when comparing fathers and mothers. As Ulf Zölitz explains, the greater the gender inequality in a country or culture, the greater the discrepancy in time investment. He stresses that the discrepancy, especially among fathers, may not be rooted in bad intentions. The reasons may be rooted in the intention of preparing the son or daughter for his or her role in society. Daum adds that unconscious biases can very much influence the way parents and educators look at children and what they teach them, whether it is the bias that girls are better at languages and boys are stronger in math or simply having a stereotype-triggering first name, which is considered particularly intelligent or not.

Ultimately, Zölitz’s findings show considerable dif­ferences in parenting styles, transferred values, and images of children between different countries and regions. These differences are remarkable, but the parents’ personalities are still the most important factors in a child’s upbringing. Thus, while it does matter where a child is born – whether in Bangladesh, Chile, or Sweden – what matters even more is what the child’s parents are like. This is another key finding of the World Parenting Survey. A project that spans different levels of observation, scientific disciplines, and whole continents. “In short,” says Daum, “this study is exactly what the Jacobs Center is all about!”

Author: Elmnaz Shahbali
Editor: Servan Grüninger