Why don't they want a male-dominated job? An investigation of young women who changed their occupational aspirations

Frome, P.M., Alfeld, C.J., Eccles, J.S. and Barber, B.L. (2006) Why don't they want a male-dominated job? An investigation of young women who changed their occupational aspirations. Educational Research and Evaluation, 12 (4). pp. 359-372.

Abstract

We examined 2 hypotheses regarding why some young women do not maintain their espoused occupational aspirations in male-dominated fields from late adolescence through young adulthood. The first hypothesis concerns attitudes towards math and science; the second concerns the desire for job flexibility. The sample of young women (N = 104) was taken from a larger longitudinal investigation of approximately 1,000 young women from a midwestern metropolitan area in Michigan, USA, who were followed from age 18 (in 1990) to age 25 (1997). Findings suggest that desire for a flexible job, high time demands of an occupation, and low intrinsic value of physical science were the best predictors of women changing their occupational aspirations out of male-dominated fields. These results suggest that despite the women's movement and more efforts in society to open occupational doors to traditional male-jobs for women, concerns about balancing career and family, together with lower value for science-related domains, continue to steer young women away from occupations in traditionally male-dominated fields, where their abilities and ambitions may lie.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Murdoch Affiliation:	School of Psychology
Publisher:	Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Copyright:	2006 Taylor & Francis
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/11950

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