The Career Path for Women in the Future
I recently read this article in the NY Times, which indicates that many women in college today have every intention to begin work and then put their career on hold in order to be a stay-at-home mom.
What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children. Whenever I have done student surveys in my undergraduate classes, I have found more and more young women saying that one of their goals is to get married, stay at home, and raise children.
As trends such as these begin to unfold, it is important for servant-leadership run organizations to not only be aware but be prepared. In many ways the pendulum has swung completely to the other side; meaning that there is sometimes an assumption now that women coming into the workforce will be more concerned with moving up the corporate ladder than raising children. Servant-leaders need to be aware that this assumption may well be false.
Although some people will immediately jump to conclusions about whether this trend is "good" or "bad," that is not my place; nor should it cause any great alarm....it is what it is. I would like to think that we have advanced as a society enough over the past 30 years with regards to women in the workplace that this report should not cause any ire, nor backlash in the hiring of qualified women. Servant-Leadership, with its focus on the common good, should help leaders in preparing for a new examination of our assumptions about today's young women professionals and be ready to embrace the decisions they will make as they begin to have children.
What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children. Whenever I have done student surveys in my undergraduate classes, I have found more and more young women saying that one of their goals is to get married, stay at home, and raise children.
As trends such as these begin to unfold, it is important for servant-leadership run organizations to not only be aware but be prepared. In many ways the pendulum has swung completely to the other side; meaning that there is sometimes an assumption now that women coming into the workforce will be more concerned with moving up the corporate ladder than raising children. Servant-leaders need to be aware that this assumption may well be false.
Although some people will immediately jump to conclusions about whether this trend is "good" or "bad," that is not my place; nor should it cause any great alarm....it is what it is. I would like to think that we have advanced as a society enough over the past 30 years with regards to women in the workplace that this report should not cause any ire, nor backlash in the hiring of qualified women. Servant-Leadership, with its focus on the common good, should help leaders in preparing for a new examination of our assumptions about today's young women professionals and be ready to embrace the decisions they will make as they begin to have children.
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