Stability and change in major life goals during the transition to parenthood: Little evidence that parenthood leads to change in major life goals

Stability and change in major life goals during the transition to parenthood. Caroline Wehner, Manon A. van Scheppingen, Wiebke Bleidorn. European Journal of Personality, March 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890207021996894

Abstract: The transition to parenthood introduces changes in various life domains. In this paper, we examined whether and to what degree the transition to parenthood is related to changes in the importance of major life goals. To do this, we examined the rank-order stability, ipsative stability, and mean-level change in six life goal domains (achievement, power, variation, affiliation, altruism, and intimacy) in a sample of 248 parents and 294 individuals in a romantic relationship without children across two time points. Overall, we found high rank-order (variable-oriented) and ipsative (person-oriented) stability, and little evidence for mean-level changes in the importance of life goals across the transition to parenthood. However, we found several selection effects suggesting that women without children tended to endorse agentic life goals (variation and achievement) more than mothers did. Generally, our findings underline the overall stability of life goals and their role as guiding principles in life.

Keywords: life goals, development, parenthood, period of transition, life event

Discussion

In the present study, we observed stability and change of life goals in first-time parents and couples without children. We examined stability using a variable-oriented (rank-order stability) and a person-oriented approach (ipsative stability). Both indices indicated high stability in parents’ and nonparents’ life goals over the course of one year. Expecting mothers but not fathers differed from nonparents in several goal domains prior childbirth (selection effects). However, we found little evidence for mean-level change in general, or for differences in the mean-level change trajectories of parents and nonparents (socialization effects). Overall, these results suggest that the importance of major life goals is quite stable, even amid a major life event such as the transition to parenthood. As such, selection rather than socialization effects appear to explain the differences in life goals between parents and nonparents.

How stable are life goals?

The rank-order stability of all goal dimensions was high and in the range of previous findings (e.g., r = .65 – .75 in Lüdtke et al., 2009). There were only few differences between parents and nonparents. Mothers appeared to be less rank-order stable than nonmothers in their endorsement of variation, and fathers appeared less stable than nonfathers in achievement. These results are consistent with our hypothesis of lower stability in parents. Notably, both variation and achievement are agentic goals which leads to the question why stability in parents tends to be lower in agentic but not in communal goals. One explanation may be that communal goals are generally more stable, which may express itself in transitional periods such as parenthood or in the long-term. Atherton et al. (2020) found some evidence that goals’ stability tends to be higher in communal goals (family/relationship r = .58, social r = .44) than in agentic goals (economic r = .36; but political r = .46) across 24 years. Overall, however, parenthood had a smaller effect on the rank-order stability of life goals than we expected given the profound impact parenthood entails on people’s resources, life style, and routines. Notably, the limited sample size in each group resulted in relatively large confidence intervals which made their comparison a rather conservative test.

Not only the rank-ordering of individuals along the goal dimensions but also the rank-ordering of goal dimensions within individuals – the ipsative stability of life goals – was high in both parents and nonparents. That means, independent of the parenthood status for most individuals the order in the importance of their life goals did not change across the study period. However, we explored and found significant differences between women and men indicating that even though both genders were highly stable, men were slightly less consistent in the ranking of their life goals.

In summary, results for both indicators of stability, variable- and person-oriented, emphasized that life goals are rather stable constructs, even in the face of a major life event such as the transition to parenthood. This finding is consistent with the life goals literature that has highlighted their function as guiding principles that provide direction and consistency across situations and roles (Hennecke & Freund, 2017; Roberts & Robins, 2000).

However, high levels of rank-order and ipsative stability do not exclude the possibility of mean-level change in major life goals. To test whether life goals change during the transition to parenthood, we compared parents’ and nonparents’ life goals before and after the transition to parenthood.

Do parents and nonparents differ in their life goals?

As hypothesized, we found evidence for selection effects indicating that mothers and nonmothers differ in their life goals. Specifically, compared to nonmothers, mothers scored generally lower in the agency-related goals achievement and variation. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that expecting mothers prioritize specific life goals. Indeed, the transition to parenthood might reflect certain goals, such as the idea to settle down, i.e. allows for less variation. The robust selection effect of low openness to experience (e.g., van Scheppingen et al., 2016), which is among others defined by a preference for variety and curiosity, is also in line with our finding of less variation in mothers. In qualitative interviews, Bass (2015) found that women tended to downshift their career goals, i.e. achievement, in anticipation of parenthood. Men, in comparison, usually did not do so, which is in line with our finding of no differences between fathers and nonfathers. This might be particularly pronounced in our Dutch sample, as the Netherlands have by far the highest rate of part-time employment in women compared to their neighboring countries (OECD, 2019) and a relatively short leave for fathers. We further hypothesized but found no selection effects for communal goals. As pointed out above, communal goals might be more stable than agentic goals (Atherton et al., 2020) and thus are less prone to change in general.

Is parenthood associated with change in life goals?

Previous research established age-graded mean-level decreases in life goal importance, particularly during young adulthood (Atherton et al., 2020; Roberts et al., 2004). This pattern might be a result of age-graded decreases in resources (Lüdtke et al., 2009; Roberts et al., 2004) that tend to occur as a consequence of life events such as the transition to parenthood. Goal selection, i.e. decrease in most life goals’ importance, which is assumed to ensure functioning and effective goal pursuit (Baltes et al., 2006), may be accelerated by major life events. Consistent with these assumptions, we expected mean-level decreases in most life goals, particularly in parents, as they should experience an even greater decrease in resources than nonparents (see for example Nelson et al., 2014). Different to our expectations, we found very little evidence for mean-level change in life goals and only few differences between parents and nonparents.

In summary, we found little evidence for life goal change in response to the transition to parenthood. The lack of socialization effects associated with parenthood is consistent with research on other individual difference variables, such as the Big Five (Galdiolo & Roskam, 2014; Jokela et al., 2011; van Scheppingen et al., 2016; but see also Asselmann & Specht, 2020). Overall, life goals and other psychological variables appear to predict who will select into parenthood but do not seem to change in response to the experience of this life transition.

An important question is when the observed differences between parents and nonparents emerge. For example, parents-to-be may undergo changes in life goals long before their decision of having a child (see Bass, 2015) or during pregnancy. Salmela-Aro et al. (2000) found some evidence to support the hypothesis that parents’ experience changes in life goals immediately before the birth of their child, at least with regard to mothers’ achievement strivings. While the amount of achievement goals declined from the 12th to the 36th week of pregnancy in this study, it was stable from the 36th week to 3 months after birth. In the present study, life goals were only assessed once before child birth, thus we could not quantify the timing of change.

Gender differences

We hypothesized that parenthood would have a more profound influence on mothers’ than fathers’ goal structures, as mothers experience generally more physical, emotional, and psychological changes and often assume the role of the primary caregiver (Poudevigne & O’Connor, 2006; Ruppanner et al., 2019; Salmela-Aro et al., 2000). Even though we found only few effects, mothers tended to differ more in life goals from nonmothers, than fathers did from nonfathers. In particular, we found several selection effects in women’s agentic life goals but none in men’s. This might be explained by anticipation effects. That is, Bass (2015) found that women but not men tend to constrain their career aspirations in anticipation of potential future parenthood. She suggested that socially constructed gender expectations may be a driving force leading to more mental examination of possible role conflicts, time and financial constraints occurring with parenthood, which may ultimately lead to lower scores in agency related goals in becoming mothers. Gender differences may also be explained by selection, based on more stable individual differences in goals, instead of anticipation. For men who are high on agentic goals (in the Netherlands), it might not make a big difference for their career if they have children or not, as they just keep working. For women it does make a difference, so women high on agentic goals may be more likely to postpone childbirth or not have children at all.

Limitations and future directions

The strengths of this pre-registered study include the use of a prospective longitudinal design including parents and nonparents which allowed us to examine stability and change in life goals during the transition to parenthood. Nevertheless, there are several limitations that should be considered. First, even though the total sample consisted of more than 500 participants, the sample size within the groups of mothers, fathers, nonmothers, and nonfathers was only modest by contemporary standards resulting in limited statistical power. Second, studies with more and earlier assessments leading up to the decision of having a baby could provide important insights into potential anticipation effects prior and during pregnancy. With our data, we were not able to detect such potential early changes. Third, we found attrition effects for power indicating that participants who dropped out scored higher in this domain compared to participants who remained in the study. Moreover, the latent change score models for power did not fit the data well suggesting that the results for this goal domain should be interpreted with caution. Fourth, parents were on average about four years older than nonparents. These limitations emphasize the need for replication of our results in future research. Beyond that it would be interesting to not only look at goal importance but also into the effort people tend to put into reaching their goals. The interplay of goal importance and goal effort could help to further understand the development of life goals (see Atherton et al., 2020 for a similar reasoning).