Conscious decisions, unconscious paths Pregnancy and the importance of work for women in management

Conscious decisions, unconscious paths

Pregnancy and the importance of work for women in management

Fursman

Lindy

Fursman, Lindy

Author

University of California, Berkeley

Center for Working Families

University of California, Berkeley. Center for Working Families

Sponsor

text

working paper

Berkeley, CA Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley 2001 2001 monographic

Berkeley, CA

Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley

2001

monographic

English eng

English

eng

electronic application/pdf 32 p. born digital

electronic

application/pdf

32 p.

born digital

Many authors contend that women who are employed in senior corporate and management positions have often had to work "like men" in order to succeed; that is, they have had to put career before family and other commitments. Pregnancy, however, confounds the image of the corporate manager as someone for whom family is sidelined, and complicates the notion of the unencumbered worker traditionally required by capitalism. This paper reports the initial results of a study that explores the experiences of pregnant women employed in senior and corporate positions. Interviews with a small group of managers indicate that for many women in these positions, work becomes less important during pregnancy, and that this is not always a conscious decision. For some women, this change in work/family priorities seemed to occur more unconsciously, while for others, putting family first required more conscious "identity labor."

Lindy Fursman is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Working Families and a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper No. 23

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper

No. 23

Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/)

wfn_bwpaper_17.pdf

MChB English eng

MChB

English eng

English

eng