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In the last twenty years, the women’s movement has resulted in a greater representation of women in once male-dominated venues, such as the job force and higher education. Women currently represent nearly 43% of those in the United States labor market, and it is expected that four in every five women ages 25–54 will be employed by the year 2000 (Hoyt, 1988; U.S. Department of Labor, 1995). Despite women’s increasing participation in the world of work, they continue to choose occupations that represent the stereotypically feminine range of occupations, meaning less pay and less status (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). For example, women are still underrepresented in engineering, architecture, and the physical sciences (Eccles, 1994; U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, 1995). These gender-based occupational patterns are also evidenced in college enrollment; women continue to comprise the majority in academic majors that are considered traditionally feminine, such as early childhood, elementary, and secondary education, library science, nursing, and home economics, whereas men are the predominant majors in physics, chemistry, architecture, and engineering (Bartholomew & Schnorr, 1994; National Science Foundation, 1990).

The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural and structural conditions that influence male and female physicians’ career choices and career expectations. Although women constitute 59 percent of the physicians and 55 percent of the specialists in Finland in 2014, the rate of women in oto-rhino-laryngology (38 percent) was one of the lowest among the specialties. The data consist of semi-structured interviews with young physicians (N = 19), who have entered a career in oto-rhino-laryngology (ORL) in Finland.

The results point to three features which characterize the career pattern in the specialty. First, the specialty is not one that draws students to medicine per se but rather one that is chosen during medical training. The decision to specialize in ORL was by many respondents framed as a “coincidence,” while others were attracted by the diverse character of the specialty. Second, the skills needed for being a “good” practitioner were defined as handiness, courage, and social skills, but these were not defined in a gendered way. Third, the career prospects for women within the specialty were defined by a neutralizing or a gendering framework. The neutralizing framework was represented by the pipeline argument which suggests that there is a temporary time lag in women’s representation in higher positions and that women are advancing steadily in the academic and administrative pipeline. The gendering framework pointed to the male ethos of the surgical tasks in the specialty as a barrier for women’s advancement in those areas. This chapter concludes that the pipeline view belittles existing gender inequalities in men’s and women’s medical careers and views gender differences as temporary maladjustments rather than inherent features of gendered organizations.

This study addresses the issue of decreasing accounting student interest in the specialized taxation discipline. Using survey responses from accounting students around the United States, the authors find that one of the most important influences on the choice of a taxation specialization over other accounting fields is the fascination and interest created as part of the initial taxation course in the student’s undergraduate education. This finding echoes prior research on how to motivate pre-business students toward accounting as a major area of study. The authors find that the challenging nature of the initial tax course and potential differences in future career options do not deter students from taxation. Other driving forces for pursing taxation include perceptions of entry-level and long-term compensation, long-term career opportunities, and having an interesting and challenging career. This study can be of interest to academic institutions, public accounting recruiters, and the accounting profession in general as it highlights the meaningful role each can play in encouraging accounting students to pursue taxation as a profession.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees constitute one of the largest, but least studied, minority groups in the workforce. This article examines what we know, and what we need to know, about the career and workplace experiences of this understudied population. The construct of sexual identity is defined, followed by a review of the research on sexual orientation in the workplace. Then an analysis of the differences between LGB employees and other stigmatized groups is presented. Three unique challenges facing LGB employees are identified, and conceptual models are developed that explain underlying processes. Finally, career theories are critically analyzed, and an identity-based longitudinal theory of LGB careers is presented.

This chapter applies three of the most prominent theories in vocational and career psychology to further illuminate the turnover process. Prevailing theories about attrition have rarely integrated explanatory constructs from vocational research, though career (and job) choices clearly have implications for employee affect and loyalty to a chosen job in a career field. Despite remarkable inroads by new perspectives for explaining turnover, career, and vocational formulations can nonetheless enrich these – and conventional – formulations about why incumbents stay or leave their jobs. To illustrate, vocational theories can help clarify why certain shocks (critical events precipitating thoughts of leaving) drive attrition and what embeds incumbents. In particular, this chapter reviews Super's life-span career theory, Holland's career model, and social cognitive career theory and describes how they can fill in theoretical gaps in the understanding of organizational withdrawal.

The purpose of this study was to explore low-income women’s perspectives of the shared meaning of work and employment values in their intergenerational family context from a critical and systemic lens. Participants were rural and urban women from low-income contexts (N = 14). Semi-structured interviews were designed to elicit thick description of lived experiences of work and family. Analyses were conducted using Van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology coding process (1990).

Four emergent categories (Purpose to Work, What Work Is, Motherhood and Work, and Loss, Resilience and Work) with 16 themes described work–family integration. These narratives evoked a deep interconnectedness of work, family, and life. Because participants were recruited in locations where they were either already employed or seeking employment, these findings may not represent other women.

Effectiveness of programs and policies could be expanded by incorporating women’s values and motivations for employment and targeting family-level interventions. Programs could better empower women to seek employment and skills training for lasting financial sustainability, rather than just getting any job. Because participants distinguished between careers and jobs based on college education, many felt they could never obtain a career. Additionally, participants described work–family integration, not the prevalent idea of “work–life balance.” Participants described fighting to provide a better life for their children.

This study highlights under-represented perspectives of low-income women about work. Understanding the experiences of low-income women is essential for designing programs and services that will be practical and useful.

There is currently a shortage of academic librarians in the United States. This shortage is affecting staffing levels at libraries and making it increasingly difficult to fill positions. Pollock (2002) reported that libraries across the nation are facing the same dilemma, “how to fill the growing number of vacancies in the ranks of professional librarians” (p. 94). There are several explanations for this trend. There is a phenomenon known as the graying of the profession. A large number of academic librarians are nearing retirement age and new librarians will be needed to replace them. Crosby (2001) stated that “many experienced librarians are expected to retire, switch occupations, or leave the occupation permanently for other reasons. This will create about 39,000 job openings for new librarians between 1998 and 2008” (p. 9). Wilder (2000) reported, “In demographic terms, librarianship in North America is a profession apart. Librarians are, as a group, substantially older than those in comparable professions, and they are aging at a much faster rate” (para. 1). Lynch (2002) reported that over 20% of the librarians currently employed in the United States will reach age 65 by 2014.

Institutional structures of professional career paths often support breadwinner–homemaker families, with a stay at home wife available full time to support the professional (and children), so the professional can devote complete energy and time to developing a career. This research examines how two partners in the same narrowly structured, fast track occupational culture such as those occurring for dual military officer couples shape how women and men negotiate decision making and life events. Data from interviews with 23 dual U.S. Navy officer couples build upon Becker and Moen’s (1999) scaling back notions. With both spouses in these careers, placing limits on work is extremely difficult due to fast track cultures that demand higher status choices and structures that formally do not reliably consider collocations. Trading off occurs, but with distress due to the unique demands on two partners in the fast track culture, which means career death for some. Two partners in fast track careers may not yet have given up on two careers as many peers may have, but they lose a great deal, including time together and their desired number of children. But they ultimately posit individual choice rather than focusing on structural change. The pressured family life resulting is likely similar to that for partners in other narrowly structured, fast track cultures such as in law firms and academia.

Early in one’s career in psychology, certainly starting in graduate school, if not sooner as a psych major in college, a choice point gradually emerges between seeking a career as a scholar, a scientist, and perhaps as an academic versus pursuing the life of a practitioner, one who applies the work of the former, the scholar. We faculty will often cast this choice in the form of a “tension” between science and practice. Ironically, I have never felt such tension. The purpose of this chapter is to explore choices we make in life and career, the consequences of these choices, and what we can learn in the process, that is, along the way and the implications for organization change and development.