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Purpose – Although most mothers are currently in the labor force, mothers’ labor supply varies by race and ethnicity. However, most of the discourse on mothers’ employment, particularly recent media coverage and research on mothers opting out of the labor force, focuses on the experiences of White women in managerial and professional occupations. I address the lack of diversity in the opt- out discussion by comparing the prevalence of opting out of the labor force and scaling back on work hours among Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White mothers in 20 occupations.Methodology/approach – This research employs hierarchical logistic models and hierarchical linear models using 2009 American Community Survey data.Findings – Although mothers of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to opt out when they have young children, opting out is more prevalent among White mothers. Racial and ethnic disparities are particularly salient when examining work hours. White and Asian mothers are more likely to scale back compared with Black mothers who do not appear to scale back at all when they have children.Social implications – These results show that work–family strategies differ by race, ethnicity, and occupation, and work–family solutions need to address the specific needs of women in different occupations.Originality/value – This study provides evidence suggesting that the opt-out discourse surrounding mothers’ employment has not been sufficiently nuanced and that policy solutions that are based on the experiences of women in managerial and professional occupations are likely to fall short of meeting the needs of most women.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an emerging and evolving area within women’s careers literature – women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences. Highlights from several career theories, extant research, and a framework for women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences are discussed as well as future research considerations for women’s career breaks.

The present study provides the first synthesis of the theoretical and empirical work on women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences, by providing a framework that integrates existing research with the kaleidoscope career model. Published works from 1986 until the present were considered from psychology, management, sociology, and economics literatures.

This paper provides information about how women’s experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce have emerged and evolved over the past few decades. Theoretical foundations, quantitative and qualitative research findings, and considerations for future research are discussed.

This paper is a useful source of information regarding an emerging and evolving area of studying within the women’s career literature. The paper discusses considerations for scholars and practitioners regarding developing, supporting, and retaining female talent amidst women’s career break experiences.

This paper provides an integrative framework that provides theoretical and empirical perspectives on the changing nature of women’s career values and choices, which influences their experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce. Given both the changing demographics of the current workforce (e.g. increased women’s participation in the workforce) and women’s career values, research on women’s career breaks is warranted.

While previous research on opting out has been mainly about women who leave their careers altogether, the purpose of this paper is to follow a broader definition of opting out to investigate the process and experience of women developing agency as they leave masculinist career patterns to adopt alternative career solutions.

Building on an interdisciplinary framework and a narrative approach, this paper analyses the opting out and in processes of women managers in Finland and the USA.

This paper demonstrates four micro-strategies that the women used to develop individual agency in their processes of opting out of masculinist career models and opting in to alternative solutions for work. These micro-strategies are redefining career success, transcending boundaries, renegotiating working conditions and keeping in touch with professional networks.

Organisational leaders can use the knowledge of the strategies that empower women in their opting out processes when making decisions regarding working practices. In order to retain their employees, organisations should be supportive of employees’ individual agency and their participation in developing work structures, as well as providing more opportunities for two-way blurring between work and family instead of the current one-way blurring where work spills over to family life, increasing work-family conflict.

This paper develops a framework to better understand women’s agency during the process of opting out of corporate careers and opting in to solutions like part-time work and self-employment, deepening the current understanding of these solutions and presenting the micro-strategies they use to develop reflexive agency.

To understand the reasons that accounting academics leave the tenure-track academic pipeline.

Survey study was conducted of PhD graduates who left the tenure-track accounting pipeline over a 22-year period.

We located and surveyed accounting PhD graduates who have opted out of the tenure-track. These opt-outs included those who have left academia entirely and those who have moved into non-tenure-track positions. Survey results indicate that dissatisfaction with research expectations is the most significant factor for faculty now employed in non-tenure-track positions. Although there were no gender-related differences in the number of faculty who left the tenure-track but stayed in academia, there were some gender differences in the importance of family-related factors in motivating the move off of the tenure-track.

The study examines the importance of the “push” and “pull” factors associated with changing career paths in academia that have been identified in the literature. The study finds some differences in influential factors between accounting academia and other fields. Sample size is a potential limitation.

The study provides recommendations for PhD program directors and for hiring institutions to help reduce the number of opt-outs.

Retention of qualified faculty who are dedicated teachers improves students’ educational outcomes.

This is the first study to examine factors that drive accounting academics to opt-out of the tenure-track.

While past research has explored how opting-out enables mothers to break free from masculinist organizational cultures, less attention has been given to how they resist disciplinary power that constitutes and governs their subjectivities. This paper aims to add to the discussion of opting-out as a site of power and resistance by proposing the concept of “constructive resistance” as a productive vantage point for investigating opted-out mothers' subversive practices of self-making.

This Malaysian case study brings together the notion of constructive resistance, critical narrative analysis and APPRAISAL theory to examine the reflective stories of eighteen mothers who exited formal employment. These accounts were collected through an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured email interviews.

The mothers in the sample tend to construct themselves in two main ways, as (1) valuable mothers (capable, tireless, caring mothers who are key figures in their children's lives) and (2) competent professionals. These subjectivities are parasitic on gendered and neoliberal ideals but allow the mothers to undermine neoliberal capitalist work arrangements that were incongruent with their personal values and adversely impacted their well-being, as well as refuse organizational narratives that positioned them as “failed” workers.

Whereas power is primarily seen in previous opting-out scholarship as centralized and constraining, this case study illustrates how the lens of constructive resistance can be beneficial for examining opted-out mothers' struggles against a less direct form of power that governs through the production of truths and subjectivities.

Using data from the U.S. Census in conjunction with data from the Current Population Survey (1980–2009), I find little support for the opt-out revolution – highly educated women, relative to their less-educated counterparts, are exiting the labor force to care for their families at higher rates today than in earlier time periods – if one focuses solely on the decision to work a positive number of hours irrespective of marital status or race. If one, however, focuses on both the decision to work a positive number of hours and the decision to adjust annual hours of work (conditional on working), I find some evidence of the opt-out revolution, particularly among white college educated married women in male-dominated occupations.

Commercial non‐solicited communications are a growing problem bringing calls for tighter anti‐Spam legislation. This paper compares the advantages and disadvantages of opt‐in and opt‐out schemes. An opt‐in scheme would provide the best protection for citizens’ privacy and property. However, the fragmented way in which EU legislation is being implemented shows how the geographic limitations of the legislation may make opt‐in partially useless and harmful for competition. This paper therefore concludes that opt‐out with “public” international lists are the best compromise.

Worldwide efforts to identify individuals infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) focus almost exclusively on community healthcare systems, thereby failing to reach high-risk populations and those with poor access to primary care. In the USA, community-based HCV testing policies and guidelines overlook correctional facilities, where HCV rates are believed to be as high as 40 percent. This is a missed opportunity: more than ten million Americans move through correctional facilities each year. Herein, the purpose of this paper is to examine HCV testing practices in the US correctional system, California and describe how universal opt-out HCV testing could expand early HCV detection, improve public health in correctional facilities and communities, and prove cost-effective over time.

A commentary on the value of standardizing screening programs across facilities by mandating all facilities (universal) to implement opt-out testing policies for all prisoners upon entry to the correctional facilities.

Current variability in facility-level testing programs results in inconsistent testing levels across correctional facilities, and therefore makes estimating the actual number of HCV-infected adults in the USA difficult. The authors argue that universal opt-out testing policies ensure earlier diagnosis of HCV among a population most affected by the disease and is more cost-effective than selective testing policies.

The commentary explores the current limitations of selective testing policies in correctional systems and provides recommendations and implications for public health and correctional organizations.

This paper considers the phenomenon of “opting out” from an intersectional lens, bringing in hitherto undertheorized dimensions of gender, race and power into the conversation related to why and how some women of color may make the “choice” to leave an organization.

Through a single case study approach, our research elucidates how identity-connected experiences unconnected to work/life balance constraints and tensions caused one immigrant woman of color to leave the workplace. We expand upon the current use of intersectionality in management and organization studies by applying it as a lens to bring into consideration power relations in organizations and structural inequality as the context for understanding why and how some women of color may leave their places of employment.

Based on our in-depth case study, we demonstrate that microaggressions, power relations, and structural inequities contribute to some women of color opting out.

This paper is of value to scholars interested in intersectionality framework applications.

The steady dropout of senior women from the corporate ladder motivated us to gain insights into their opting out decisions. This exploratory study revealed internal aspiration as a contributory factor of opting out beyond the well-established push and pull factors.

Nineteen senior women executives who had opted out of successful careers due to their internal aspirations were interviewed and grounded theory was leveraged to derive the emergent themes.

The spirit of autonomy and strong personal value emerged as a common thread amongst the women and the basis for their opting out decision. These factors led these senior women to embark upon newer pastures, which included entrepreneurship, dedication to a cause, a passion or academics. The findings were mapped with the protean career concept.

Recommendations would help organizations reimagine and strengthen the existing interventions for the retention of women at the senior levels while simultaneously empowering the women to align their career with their aspirations.

The study uniquely identifies the protean career concept as the force behind the journey undertaken by these women executives. This is in contrast with the push and pull factors that have been vastly studied as reasons for the opting out decisions.