Ithaca College

Stephen Sweet, Associate Professor of Sociology, has published an article “Are Women Less Career Centric Than Men? Structure, Culture and Career Investments” in the journal Community, Work and Family.  Co-authors of the study are Natalia Sarkisian (Boston College), Christina Matz-Costa (Boston College) and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes (Boston College). 

The article critically examines the belief that gender career differences in careers result from cultural orientations that compel women to place less importance on their careers than men.  The study poses an alternate explanation - that  gender differences in career identities result from exposure to different types of job characteristics. Using the 2010 Generations of Talent (GOT) data from 9,210 employees working in 11 countries for 7 multinational companies, this study verifies the existence of gender differences in career centrality. Gender disparities in career centrality are revealed to be modest, indicating that women’s and men’s identification with careers is more similar than is commonly asserted.  The most pronounced (but still relatively small) disparities are observed in Japan and China.

A large portion of the gender gap is explained by job characteristics, supporting structural explanations. Family demands contribute to explaining the gap as well, but the findings are unexpected: Having minor children is associated with higher career centrality for both women and men. In support of cultural explanations, traditional gender beliefs are associated with lower career centrality, especially for women, while two job characteristics (job variety and peer relations) have distinct links to career centrality for women and men. Findings challenge the common assumption that family identities compete against work identities.