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Gendered Career Paths: A Life Course Perspective on Returning to School

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Abstract

We applied a life course perspective to an examination of work-to-school transitions, and highlighted the individual and family-level factors that differentially shape the career pathways of men and women. We employed data from a sample of employed middle-class men and women in dual-earner couples (N = 1,408 couples) to examine the relationship between returning to school and prior educational attainment, individual biographic pacing (age, timing of marriage), job history, current job conditions, psychological resources, and family demands. Results support several hypothesized gender differences in the return to school pathway. Women with the heaviest combination of work and family demands were the most likely to return, an unexpected finding that we discuss with reference to both personal and structural resources.

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Notes

  1. The human capital perspective, as articulated in the classic works of Mincer (1958) and Becker (1964), is frequently applied to macro-level analyses of the skills and abilities of workers that are valuable to employers. While our usage of the concept retains this meaning, we follow Light (1995) and Marcus (1986) and others in focusing on individuals’ efforts to enhance their own skills and abilities through education and training.

  2. In previous research (e.g., Kerckhoff & Parrow, 1979; Lowe et al., 1989; Lowe & Witt, 1984), early marriage has been defined as occurring prior to the age of 22. Given trends toward both later first marriages and later college graduation (e.g., the increasingly common 5-year time-to-degree), we have defined early marriage as occurring before the 23rd birthday.

  3. It should be noted that there are no absolute goodness-of-fit tests for logistic regression.

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Acknowledgement

This research was supported by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (no. 96-6-9, 99-6-23, 2002-6-8, B2001-50). The authors thank Meg Bond, Karen Grace-Martin, Vandana Plassmann, Laura Punnet, Wipas Wimonsate, and the Faculty Associates at the Center for Women & Work, University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

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  1. Center for Women and Work, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, 870 Broadway St., Ste. 1, Lowell, MA, 01854-3043, USA

    Andrew J. Hostetler

  2. Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Stephen Sweet

  3. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Phyllis Moen

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Hostetler, A.J., Sweet, S. & Moen, P. Gendered Career Paths: A Life Course Perspective on Returning to School. Sex Roles 56, 85–103 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9150-8

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