Search results

The wrenching decision facing successful women who must choose between demanding careers and intensive family lives has been the subject of many articles and books, most of which propose strategies for resolving the dilemma. Competing Devotions focuses on broader social and cultural forces that create women's identities and shape their understanding of what makes life worth living. Mary Blair-Loy examines the career paths of women financial executives who have tried various approaches to balancing career and family. These mavericks, who face great resistance but are aided by new ideological and material resources that come with historical change, may eventually redefine both the nuclear family and the capitalist firm in ways that reduce work-family conflict.Table of Contents: Introduction 1 The Devotion to Work Schema 2 The Devotion to Family Schema 3 Reinventing Schemas: Creating Part-Time Careers 4 Reinventing Schemas: Family Life among Full-Time Executive Women 5 Turning Points 6 Implications Appendix: Methods and Data Notes References Acknowledgments Index Many professional women intuit that male colleagues whose spouse handle for them the details of everyday life are favored in the workplace. Blair-Loy confirms this intuition and shows us how it happens. She captures how the cultural schemas of "family devotion" and "work devotion" contribute to the reproduction of gender inequality, and how meeting the demands of a husband's job and other people's needs push professional women to progressively abandon their work to take care of others. Her analysis also gives us hope by comparing the fate of pre and post-baby boomers. This is both an important scholarly contribution and a book that will help readers think differently about their lives. It should be required reading for professional women who aspire to maintain multidimensional lives.--Mich'le Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and ImmigrationThis is a fascinating book with an important message. Blair-Loy's findings are surprising. She challenges conventional viewpoints. She is on to something really new when she writes about not only the interplay between cultural norms and individual actions (and institutional structures) but on the cultural schemas that evoke deep emotional resonances. An outstanding book.--Cynthia Fuchs-Epstein, author of Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social OrderMary Blair-Loy's book transcends old debates about work and family by examining the women who have beaten the odds and risen to the top. Her detailed examination of careers and strategies perfectly complements her subtle analysis of the schemas and visions these women have for their lives. Blair-Loy has given us not only a splendid view into a little known world, but also a new way of understanding the dynamic interplay of work and family. Looking beyond the static conflict we have studied so much, she shows how creative women put traditional schemas of family and work into a mutual transformation to build for themselves a new and more livable world.--Andrew Abbott, author of Time Matters

Misperceiving merit, excellence, and devotion in academic STEM -- The cultural construction of merit in academic STEM -- The work devotion schema and its consequences -- Mismeasuring merit : the schema of scientific excellence as a yardstick of merit -- Defending the schema of scientific excellence, defending inequality -- The moralization of merit : consequences for scientists and science.

This article explores two dimensions of well-being among five hundred finance managers and professionals in a large firm: higher income, which we regard as a proxy for career success, and work-family balance. These dimensions are partially incompatible: longer work hours are associated with higher earnings and with intensified conflict. Mothers are more likely than fathers to experience work-family conflict. Work that is overwhelming and unpredictable can exacerbate conflict, while workplace flexibility can alleviate it. Among men, using dependent care policies is associated with lower earnings. We find an earnings gap between men and women in the sample but no earnings penalty for mothers relative to other female respondents. Although women are less likely than men to combine parenting with careers at this firm, the mothers still at the firm may be unusually successful compared to their female coworkers.

This article explores two dimensions of well-being among five hundred finance managers & professionals in a large firm: higher income, which we regard as a proxy for career success, & work-family balance. These dimensions are partially incompatible: longer work hours are associated with higher earnings & with intensified conflict. Mothers are more likely than fathers to experience work-family conflict. Work that is overwhelming & unpredictable can exacerbate conflict, while workplace flexibility can alleviate it. Among men, using dependent care policies is associated with lower earnings. We find an earnings gap between men & women in the sample but no earnings penalty for mothers relative to other female respondents. Although women are less likely than men to combine parenting with careers at this firm, the mothers still at the firm may be unusually successful compared to their female coworkers. 5 Tables, 39 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2004 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]