The Social Costs of Career Success for Women

Abstract

Women in the workforce, especially those in professional and management positions, are doubly burdened by social traditions that expect workers to meet masculine standards at the office while maintaining their feminine role of nurturer at home. This article studies the social costs of female career progression using a survey of 1,600 respondents from different levels of the public sector. The results show that working women have an increased incidence of being single or divorced, married working women tend to have more housework responsibilities, and working women have fewer children or are childless. The article concludes that government and business organizations need to pay serious attention to this hidden problem of social costs that affect women and men disproportionately.

Covert Pay Discrimination: How Authority Predicts Pay Differences between Women and Men

“…Theorists, such as Stivers (1993), discuss problems with gender images, describing an irreconcilable paradox between images of leadership and gender images. Later research on the conventional ideology of “working men” and “family women” demonstrates that women’s devotion to their public sector careers results in much higher social costs for their career success (Johnson and Duerst‐Lahti 1991; Tower and Alkadry 2008). This article does not intend to address all of these problems, or holes in the pay bucket for women.…”

“…Smith (2005) reports that for white women and men, being married decreases women’s chances for promotion, whereas for men, it appears to help. From a survey of 1,600 respondents, Tower and Alkadry (2008) find that married working women had more housework responsibilities, an increased incidence of being single or divorced, and fewer children as they climbed their respective career ladders.…”

“…Discrimination explicitly and implicitly affects women’s career progression, their family choices, their pay, and the amount of authority they exercise (Johnson and Duerst‐Lahti 1991; Mitra 2003; Tower and Alkadry 2008; Wright, Baxter, and Birkelund 1995). While people who have more education, have more experience, and live in places with higher costs of living are likely to earn higher salaries, research shows that gender continues to have an impact on pay, even while controlling for these other factors (Alkadry and Tower 2006).…”

Career Success Factors of Women in the Public Sector: An Empirical Analysis of the Korean Central Government

“…A considerable number of studies have investigated the question of why the proportion of women in the top managerial levels has remained relatively small, but many of those studies have discussed this issue using the concept of job segregation, the glass ceiling, and pay equity during women's integration process into the workforce (Tower & Alkadry, 2008). To offer another approach, this article deals with women who have managed to break through the barriers and constraints women continue to face.…”

“…It is evident that many obstacles continue to inhibit women's career development in the workplace (Tower & Alkadry, 2008). Women working in the upper managerial levels occupy a relatively small proportion of the workforce in most countries (Adler, 1993;Burke, 2005).…”