A Cross-country Comparison of Attitudes Towards Mothers Working and their Actual Labor Market Experience James W. Albrecht ± Per-Anders Edin ± Susan B. Vroman Abstract. In this paper, we use data from the International Social Survey Project to present a cross-country comparison of attitudes about the labor force participation of mothers. We also estimate earnings functions and probits for full- time work and examine whether there is a link between attitudes and women's actual labor market experience across countries. We find that while a woman's own attitude about work does not directly influence her wage, it does influence the probability that she works full time. 1. Introduction In this paper, we use data from seven European countries and the USA to explore the question of whether there is a link between attitudes towards married women's labor market participation and women's actual labor market experience. With comparable data across these countries, we are able to document the considerable variation in attitudes across the countries towards married women, LABOUR 14 4) 591±608 2000) JEL J160 # Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. James W. Albrecht, Department of Economics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057-1036, USA. Per-Anders Edin, Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Box 513, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Susan B. Vroman, Department of Economics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057-1036, USA. The data used in this paper were documented and made available by the Zentralarchiv fuÈ r Empirische Socialforschung, KoÈ ln. The data for the `ISSP' were collected by independent institutions in each country. Neither the original collectors nor the Zentralarchiv bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation presented here.