The career development of successful women

Barbara White

Introduction
A report by the Hansard Society[1] described a quiet revolution in womens labour force participation. In the 1950s women comprised less than one-third of the labour force, however women now represent almost half of the British workforce. Despite the revolution in the numbers of working women, many are blocked in their attempts to gain access to higher occupational positions. Women are said to encounter a glass ceiling over their aspirations which allows them to see where they might go but stops them from getting there. A symptom of the glass ceiling is the low number of women in top jobs. Prospects for women in the 1990s In the late 1980s it was widely predicted that economic change would force British employers to acknowledge that they could no longer afford not to utilize the skills of women throughout their working lives. There was growing apprehension over what was described as the demographic time bomb. The number of young people entering the workforce between 1988 and 1995 was projected to drop by 25 per cent[2]. It was also recognized that the structure of employment in Britain was changing. Employment in manufacturing was on the decline, while service sector employment, in which the majority of women were located, was increasing. Of the 1.75 million new jobs anticipated by 1995, one million were expected to be in professional and related occupations, bringing the proportion of the labour force employed in these sectors to just under 25 per cent by the middle of the decade[3]. The evolving structure of the labour market as depicted by the employment forecasts suggested there would be more high level jobs available. Given the large numbers of women entering the labour force and the potential opportunity for women to strive to reach top occupational positions, it seemed important to understand the career psychology of women. Much of the existing research on career development remains limited by outdated conceptualizations of women at work. Theory is based to a large extent on research which employed samples of white middle class males. The generalizability of these models of male careers has been called into question. Scholars such as Betz and Fitzgerald[4] have 4

The author Barbara White is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. Abstract Reports on an investigation into the life span development of women who have achieved eminence within commerce, industry and public life. Presents results based on in-depth interviews with 48 highly successful women. Investigates the internal dynamics of womens careers. Derives a stage model of the career development of successful women from an integration of data on work histories and nonwork family issues. Depicts schematically the amount of identity invested in each life role over time and the extent of the interaction between these roles over the life span. The majority of successful women display high career centrality, working continuously and full-time, tting domestic responsibilities around their work. Concludes that women are still expected to conform to a male model of career success.

Women in Management Review Volume 10 Number 3 1995 pp. 415 MCB University Press ISSN 0964-9425

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Barbara White

emphasized that the understanding of womens careers requires the acknowledgment that women have fundamentally different situations in developing their careers than men. Issues such as sex discrimination, the structure of opportunity and the recent emphasis on equal opportunities may have altered patterns of womens career from those of men. Larwood and Gatticker[5] have commented that womens career development does not simply lag behind that of men, but may proceed in a different manner. As yet, however, a clear picture of womens career development has yet to emerge. Conceptualizing the careers of successful women In the light of the opportunity for women to reach positions of power and inuence, it seemed appropriate to investigate the internal dynamics of womens careers as they strive for top jobs in the UK. One of the objectives was to explore ways in which we might conceptualize the careers of successful women as they develop over time and life space. To achieve this objective several theoretical frameworks have been drawn on which make a contribution to our understanding of the developmental tasks which women must face and the dynamics whereby they may differentially invest their identity in life roles. Much of the career development work which has focused on men has discussed the effects of age and career stage on an individuals job attitudes and performance. The assumption behind much of this work is that if people do move through patterns of adjustment in their lives then identifying the patterns of issues associated with various ages and stages may help in our understanding of individuals attitudes and behaviours in organizations. The question remains as to whether these theories enhance our understanding of womens careers. Following a review of the literature between 1989-1991, Swanson[6] suggested that the stage theories which had received the most attention were those of Super[7] and Levinson et al.[8]. Levinson proposed a series of age-related life stages, which encompassed unique activities and adjustments. He discussed four life eras: childhood (0-20); early adulthood (20-24); middle adulthood (4060); and late adulthood (over 60), with substages in each era. Like Levinson et al., Super proposed four stages in his model of career 5

development: exploration, establishment, maintenance and decline. In contrast to Levinson, Super posits that these stages are not determined by age, rather by an individuals circumstance and perceptions. Research comparing the career development models of Levinson et al.[8] and Super[7] has found some support for both models. The Levinson model is more closely related to individuals career decisions, while the Super model is more closely related to individuals job attitudes[9]. In an extension of this work, Orstein and Isabella[10] compared the explanatory validity of the Super and Levinson models when applied to professional women. The conclusions of their work suggested that shifting career attitudes are more a function of age rather than psychological stage. Womens experiences were more closely aligned to how old they were than where they were in their career, thus lending greater support to the Levinson model. The relevance of career stages Careers have traditionally been thought of as a meaningful progression through a series of related jobs. This was expected to occur in a relatively routine manner if only because of the hierarchical nature of the organization. Mobility in the hierarchy is rewarded with increased income and enhanced status. Pahl and Pahl[11] noted:
Middle managers in British industry appear to be willing slaves to the systemFor them life is a hierarchy and success means moving upwards. Marking time and staying in the same position is interpreted as dropping out.

Scase and Goffee[12] in their work on the reluctant manager have commented that it was not surprising that in the past notions of success tended to be linked to age-related stages. If a person arrived at a particular stage early they would feel rewarded psychologically, if they arrived late or got stuck then they would experience anxiety or frustration[13]. Scase and Goffee[12] go on to question whether the assumptions which underline the notion of orderly, predictable career paths will be tenable in the 1990s. The main assumptions which they draw attention to are the centrality of careers and the notion that progress can be categorized neatly into agerelated stages. Scase and Goffee proceed to document the changing context of career. The combined effect of organizational decentralization, delayering and increased risk of

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redundancy means that individuals can no longer assume that they will have uninterrupted, life-long career paths[14]. For many, orderly careers within a large scale organization represents only one of a variety of options[15]. The last decade may have brought signicant changes to mens careers but, women have traditionally had less orderly careers because they have followed their husbands career paths, they have had family and domestic responsibilities and they have been subject to male managers prejudice[16]. Women have been forced to adapt to limited opportunities by becoming job, rather than careeroriented, focusing on the immediate intrinsic rewards of the task rather than the long-term benet[16,17]. Scase and Goffee[12] suggest that the experiences of women may become more typical of all workers within present day organizational conditions. Although mens careers may be changing, Larwood and Gutek[18] believe that two key issues still divide men and women. First, women are said to feel the tug of alternative possibilities. For instance they suggest that if a woman nds that her career has plateaued early she may decide to give up work and begin a family; such an option is less viable for a man. Second, although women legally have equal opportunities, they are still discriminated against. As opportunities are fewer, progress is slower which may make other alternatives more attractive. Based on these observations, Larwood and Gutek[18] suggest that a theory of womens career development might be better conceptualized as a tree of possible alternatives, each combination of which has a potentially different outcome. They believe that such a conceptualization is preferable to an age-linked stage theory because it overcomes problems of incorporating timing and age. Using the network idea they suggest that it might be possible to gain a perspective on the effect of time lags on career development in different situations. The Larwood and Gutek model does, however have a serious weakness. Although the network model may provide greater exibility in thinking about womens career development, it does not provide a clear set of predictions. The innite number of alternative options available to an individual combined with the lack of a clear outline of the 6

dynamics of the career decision-making tree, make the model impossible to test empirically. An alternative model used to consider career behaviour is the triple helix model presented by Rapoport and Rapoport[19]. At each turning point in the developmental process, one confronts tasks that are new and specic to that phase but simultaneously there is an interaction with past and present experience. The whole life career is made up of transitions. In addition, there is a helix for family and leisure. The three helical structures carry on through life each with its own impetus and characteristics. The triple helix model of each life career must be constructed on the basis of that individuals experience. Adjustments for variables such as age when married, timing of childbirth and change of jobs must be made for each individual. A typical helix is shown in Figure 1. Using these conceptions of career we may observe whether there are any unique patterns in the conguration of the helix for successful women. It is feasible that each strand will be given primacy at different times. This would prove useful, particularly in representing the careers of women, as it acknowledges the possibility of changing importance of different life arenas over the life span. The dynamics of career commitment The process of investment in work or family roles is poorly understood and most research has been descriptive rather than theoretical[20,21]. Therefore, an attempt has been made to build on existing theory to develop a tentative model of womens career commitment. Hall[13] has dened career commitment as the motivation to work in a career role. This denition is also reected in Farmers[22] work on career and achievement motivation. Farmer proposed that the construct of career and achievement motivation could be broken down into three components. Mastery, dened as the tendency to choose difcult tasks and to persevere in the face of problems; aspirations, dened as the level of education or occupation to which one aspires and; career centrality, dened as the extent to which one sees involvement in career as central to ones adult life. Farmer has suggested that the three motivational factors are interdependent but exactly how they interact is not clear. She employed quantitative measures of the concepts and attempted to test the rela-

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Figure 1 A triple helix model of career development Old age Spouse dies, joins choral group Midlife Retirement, takes up voluntary work

Spouse takes new job, children leave home Further promotion, joins golf club

First child arrives, gives up tennis

Adulthood Marries, gets promoted Youth Leaves home gives up music Adolescence Takes job, joins tennis club

Enters secondary school, mother takes job Occupational Family Leisure

Enters school, takes music lesson Childhood

Source : [19]

tionships statistically. The current research took a very different qualitative approach. Drawing on theory related to mastery, aspiration and career centrality, an attempt has been made to speculate on the possible relationship between the components of career and achievement motivation (see Figure 2). A characteristic of individuals with high mastery motivation is that they are more
Figure 2 A tentative model of the relationship between the three components of career and achievement motivation

Aspirations determine which goals are set Mastery set challenging goals seek opportunities to test competence, persevere in the face of difficulty Increased competence, career sub-identity growth/ greater career centrality

active in seeking opportunities to test their competence. They will also tend to set more challenging goals, the achievement of which is important for their self concept. Individuals with high mastery motivation also demonstrate perseverance in the face of difculties. To explicate further the concept of career centrality we have drawn on Halls[13] theory of sub-identities. Hall has proposed that an individuals identity can be conceptualized as consisting of several sub-identities representing various aspects of the individual engaged when behaving in different social roles. The career sub-identity is dened as that aspect of the persons identity which is engaged in working in a given occupation (see Figure 3). Hall has suggested that as the individual acquires competence relevant to the career role through the setting and achievement of challenging goals, he/she will experience psychological success which leads to subidentity growth, or in Farmers[22] terms, the individual will develop greater career centrality. Therefore it would seem that the level of 7

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Figure 3 Sample sub-identities of two hypothetical people: one with low career involvement and one with high career involvement Low career-involved person

Wife role Career sub-identity Wife sub-identity

Career role

Mother sub-identity Mother role

High career-involved person Career role

Career sub-identity Wife role Wife sub-identity

sense of psychological success bears strong resemblance to Banduras[24] concept of selfefcacy. Bandura suggests that self-efcacy will determine the behaviour one selects and ones persistence at a task. Therefore, careerrelated self-efcacy may be raised through the medium of mastery motivation. This in turn increases the probability of continued career motivation and investment in the career role. Whether the individual directs his/her mastery motivation towards their career will to a certain extent be dictated by their aspirations. Harmon and Farmer[23] have suggested that one of the critical issues for vocational psychologists is whether to begin to ll the vacuum in vocational development theory related to childhood. They propose that this would be a worthwhile endeavour if we are to concern ourselves with optimizing the career development of people and to suggest interventions aimed at parents and elementary schools as well as adolescents and adults. It is not the aim of this article to suggest interventions but to look at the origins of the components of career motivation and to examine the process of career sub-identity growth in successful women. It is hoped that inferences may be drawn from the ndings which will have practical applications.

Mother role

Mother sub-identity

Methodology
The sample was composed of 48 women managers or entrepreneurs in commerce and industry or senior members of high status professions such as law and accountancy. Demonstrably successful individuals have been selected for investigation in accordance with Osipows claim that much of the research on the career development of women may have been inconclusive because it mixed respondents of varying levels of success. The research design was determined to a large extent by the phenomena under investigation. It has to be recognized that at present we have no way of selecting a group of children who will generate a sample of successful individuals. Consequently, it was necessary to draw a sample from the population of women who had already achieved career success. The focus on women in mid-career, taking a longterm view of work and personal lives is also consistent with recommendations of Levinson et al.[8] and Valliant[25] who have emphasized that the examination of careers that are well under way is essential. 8

Source : [13]

career centrality is determined partially by the level of mastery motivation directed towards the career role. A link with other theories The distinction between short-term and longterm achievement motivation may be used to explain the process of sub-identity growth. Long-term motivation is usually associated with career motivation and short-term motivation with the motivation to master a task[23]. Short-term motivation could be equated with mastery motivation. If this is directed towards a career task it could provide accomplishment information which would enhance the individuals belief in their ability to perform in the career role. This belief or

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The sample was established via womens business networks in different regions of the country. The chairperson was asked to identify successful women. Owing to the diversity of occupations it was not possible to outline objective criteria of success such as salary, annual budget one controls, the number of staff one is responsible for or the level achieved in the occupational hierarchy. The denition of success was deliberately left open so as not to limit the sample arbitrarily. Therefore, success was peer dened, that is, a career was seen to be successful if it was considered to be so by the organizing members of the network. It was decided that an investigation of the careers of successful women would best be conducted by collecting detailed information on a small number of women. This approach was considered to give a greater understanding of the dynamics of womens careers than could be obtained by sophisticated quantitative analysis. The aim was to move beyond the anecdotal state of much of the work on successful women. A balance must be struck between anecdotes and survey questionnaires which impose an already structured perception of the world based on male-centred notions, without attempting to discover the female perspective. An interview was designed to address career issues across the entire life span. In general the interviews lasted approximately one hour although this ranged from 30 minutes to one-and-a-half hours. The major topics covered in the interview were as follows: Childhood. This section focused on the qualitative nature of the parent-child relations. The role of early socialization in identity formation and its role in determining career orientation was explored in some detail. This covered factors such as identication with mother or father, parental encouragement and achievement striving and parental expectations. The interview also sought evidence of critical childhood events which were perceived as character building or particularly inuential in developmental terms. Personality. Need for achievement: information was sought on the pushes and pulls acting on women embarking on careers and the valence they placed on the different outcomes. 9

Work history. The women were asked to describe their career decision-making story[26]. This story included the timing of career moves and the decision-making processes underlying each move. In addition, the women were asked for their current denitions of a job and a career. Non-work family issues. Family responsibilities were explored in this section. Patterns of occupational behaviour were investigated with particular attention given to the timing of marriage and childbirth. The priority placed on family and work issues was explored and the changes in these priorities over time.

Results and discussion

The development of an age-linked stage model of the careers of successful women The analysis of the career decision-making story was combined with issues concerning the integration of work and family life to produce an age-linked stage model of womens career development (see Table I). The model of the career development of successful women is based largely on the career paths of the younger women in the sample. Only ve of the successful women had taken career breaks, the mean length of which was 9.4 years. These women were among the older members of the sample, their average age being 56 years. The older women in the sample were described as having an unconventional career pattern. These women had a series of challenging jobs with no logical pattern. Their employment was interspersed with periods of child rearing and voluntary work. The results suggested that no matter what their occupation, the successful women passed through specic life stages. The nature, duration and exact timing of certain life events differed, but certain developmental tasks appeared to be predictable. Certain issues did appear to emerge in chronological order and the mean age of women dealing with this developmental task is given. During age-related stages particular developmental vocational issues were confronted as the individual dealt with critical concerns about the self, their careers and their relationships with others. The ages associated with the stages are best perceived as being very exible. Further research is required to test the validity of this age-linked structure.

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Table I A stage model of the careers of successful women

Early adult transition: 17-25 years (exploration) Early commitment to an occupation Testing of initial choices about preferences for living Identify diffusion caused by role conict Entering the adult world: mid-20s (crystallization and implementation) Development of sense of personal identity in relation to work and non-work Rejection of the housewife role/separation from partner, resulting in growth of career sub-identity among late starters High career centrality among early starters (go-getters) Seek opportunities to practise chosen occupation/profession Establishment: 25-33 years Period of rapid learning and development Establishing a reputation as a high achiever Early-30s transition: 33-5 years Raised awareness of biological clock decision whether to have children Settling down: 35 years (advancement) Decision about motherhood resolved Minimum maternity leave Strive towards the achievement of personal goals Late-30s transition: 38-40 years Regret lack of children Family-career conict Move in response to glass ceiling Achievement: 40-50 years (rebalancing) Resolution of career-family conict Rationalize decision not to have children Realization of personal goals Develop greater stability and consolidate achievements to date Maintenance: 50s onwards Continued growth and success Cycle of expansion and consolidation

ent direction in their early working lives. A small number of women felt that the commencement of their careers had been delayed by family issues. This nding provides partial support for the proposal put forward by Adams[27] that forging a vocational identity may be more complex for women owing to the need to integrate both family and career roles. It would seem that for a large proportion of successful women the process of occupational identity formation is protracted, and women may experience an extended period of identity diffusion. The integration of multiple roles did not present a problem for some of the successful women in the early stages of their careers who had made an early commitment to their working lives. Of the sample, 31 per cent decided at an early age that they would always work and entered on the bottom rung of their chosen occupation. A very small number of women became entrepreneurs at an early stage. Early-30s transition A common pattern among the women was to wait until their career was well established before contemplating a family. A number of the women in the sample were going through this period of contemplation; the mean age of this group was 33 years. This transitional period was followed by a decision to have a child and to take minimum maternity leave, or to remain childless. Settling down late-30s transition Following approximately four years of renewed commitment to their careers, the women entered another transitional phase. Some women who had decided to remain childless began to express regrets about their decision. The women who decided to have children in their early 30s began to feel the strain of career and family conict. The conict was often resolved by a change of organization or by becoming self-employed. It was often during this period of transition that the successful women encountered the glass ceiling described in the Hansard Society Report[1]. These women made outspiralling moves, changing organization to gain promotion. Achievement and maintenance The resolution of issues in the late-30s transition leads to a period of achievement and rebalancing. During this stage, childless women rationalize their decision not to have 10

It should be pointed out that the model of career development of successful women bears strong resemblance to the career stages described by Levinson et al.[8], although Levinsons model was based on interviews with 40 men. This was not thought to be entirely surprising, given that these women had succeeded in a world of business which is structured to accommodate male lives. Like the men interviewed by Levinson, the successful women experienced periods of stability followed by periods of questioning and change. The main points of departure from the Levinson model relate to the timing of relationship and family events. An outline of the model Early career development Analysis of work histories showed that over half of the successful women made a late commitment to their careers or had no coher-

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children, stating that they could not have achieved their current success if they had children. This change of attitude may be explained in terms of Festingers[28] concept of cognitive dissonance. Dissonance is created in the late-30s transition because women start to feel that the sacrices they have made were too great. Dissonance theory suggests that people are motivated to reduce this inconsistency in cognitions, therefore, women begin to place greater importance on their career achievements. These women are convinced that for them career and family are mutually exclusive. The average age of this group was 46.8 years. Having reached the achievement stage, the women enter a maintenance stage. No evidence of further periods of transition was observed. The women nearing retirement were still involved in their work, although some women mentioned that they worked fewer hours, which might be viewed as the beginning of a decline stage. Due to the small number of women in this age group, it was not possible to draw any conclusions on the dynamics of the decline stage. The development of career and achievement motivation in successful women One of the key themes which emerged in the interviews with the successful women was their strength of commitment to their careers. This was clearly evident in the denitions of careers given by the successful women, in which they described career as an integral part of their lives and as part of their identity, as one of the successful women commented:
A job is a way of life for me, its the thing which I spend most of my time doing. I think that jobs are inter-linked with your personality and with personal ambitions. I didnt look at a job as a way of making money.

The origins of mastery motivation Mastery motivation is reected in the tendency of an individual to choose difcult, challenging tasks and to keep struggling to master this task once started. Howard[29] claims that mastery motivation may be associated with what humanists have described as growth needs[30]. She believes that such needs are more likely to be fullled through work. Domestic tasks are said to offer some avenues for self-expression but the range of possibilities is greater among external occupations. 11

Farmer[22] has suggested that mastery motivation is established during childhood. The ndings on the childhood experiences of high yers would suggest that childhood does play an important role in the development of mastery motivation. When asked about the quality of the parent-child relationship 30 per cent of the women in the sample said that they had a stable and close relationship with their parents. They said that their parents promoted autonomy and achievement. This pattern of parenting has been linked with achievement striving and independence in female children in earlier research[31]. What was more surprising was that 23 per cent, of the women described their relationship with the parents as remote and another 21 per cent said that they had a particularly poor relationship with their mother. This pattern of hostile mother-daughter relationships has been observed in other studies of successful women[32,33]. This experience of early trauma or dissociation of self from parents is hypothesized to play a role in identity development[34]. Both sexes begin life dependent on the mother[35,36]. Therefore, the primary identication is with the mother. A boy must separate his identity from the mother and identify with a more remote father. As a result a sense of separateness is developed. Identity is said to be derived by differentiating self from others in terms of abilities and attributes. Self-assessment is in terms of achievements and mastery over the environment. This provides a clear link with mastery motivation. A girls identity remains connected to the mother. Identity is said to be dened in terms of relationships with others. Self-assessment is in terms of connection to others, e.g. helping and supporting others. This form of identity is less likely to engender high mastery motivation, rather it is associated more logically with need for afliation. The poor mother-daughter relationship among the successful women may have facilitated the separation of self. The development of a separate sense of self enables the individual to differentiate self in terms of abilities and attributes. This separate form of identity is likely to generate a high mastery motivation. Origins of career centrality Career centrality, dened as the extent to which the individual sees involvement in a

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career as central to their adult life, has been linked with the concept of sub-identities. Hall[13] has proposed that as the individual acquires information about competence relevant to career role through setting and achieving challenging goals will experience growth of their career sub-identity or in Farmers[22] terminology they will have greater career centrality. The successful women described several sources of competence information: Early challenge Almost all of the successful women were able to identify a signicant event or turning point which they felt had made an impact on their careers. Thirty per cent said that they had been given a challenge early in their careers which had given them the opportunity to prove their abilities. These women described this experience as being thrown in at the deep end and managing to stay aoat. Coping successfully with this challenge was claimed to have raised self-condence which lead the women to seek further challenge. Male high yers also recounted memories of make-or-break experiences where they were given little outside support. All of the MDs in the high yers study coped successfully but, what happens to those who do not remains unknown[37]. Other key events in the careers of successful women included achieving senior corporate positions at a very young age, or in situations where the level of seniority was previously unknown for a woman. Nine of the women in the sample said that they had been responsible for the success of a new venture of expanding an existing business. They had been in charge of the developmental process which had laid the foundations for future expansion. As women acquire evidence of their competence they experience psychological success which leads to growth of the career sub-identity. Mentors Several of the women credited open-minded bosses for giving them the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and for having faith in their competence regardless of gender. This nding coincides with an earlier well known study of female managers by Hennig and Jardim[17] which showed that the female managers had mentors who helped them to develop condence to take on extra responsibilities and to test new competences. Only 12

12.5 per cent of the current sample said that they had not had a mentor. The large majority felt that their success could in part be attributed to another person. Previous research has shown that the benets of mentoring fall into two categories, psychosocial and career (Arnold and Davidson[38]). Both classes of benets were mentioned by the successful women. Thirtyeight per cent said that their condence had been raised because their mentor had faith in their ability and they had reinforced this faith by encouragement and support. Arnold and Davidson[38] found similar numbers of women in their sample believed the main benet of mentoring was building self-condence. This was less important to the males in their sample, only 20 per cent of whom felt that this was the main benet of mentoring. Therefore, the results of the current study lend support to Arnold and Davidsons conclusion that women have greater need for psychological afrmation from mentors than men. Homemaking commitment Farmer[22] reports that homemaking commitment has the biggest effect on career centrality. Low homemaking commitment is said to be related to high career centrality. This appeared to be the case among successful women. Of the successful women in the sample 50 per cent claimed that work took priority in their lives. The centrality of work in their lives was also reected in their denitions of career. A large proportion of the women felt that work was an integral part of their lives from which they derived their identity. As reected in the late-30s transition a small proportion made the reservation that although work had always taken priority in their lives, they were now beginning to regret it. They felt that they had missed their opportunity to have children or to enjoy their children while they were young. This regret is a symptom of the work involvement escalation cycle as proof of competence leads to greater investment. As Howard[29] suggests, left unchecked, the more-work, less-family cycle can lead to diminishing life returns. Of our successful women 30 per cent said that they tried to achieve a balance, although they would put their family rst in the event of a crisis. Only 20 per cent of the successful women felt that their family took priority over their working lives.

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Balancing multiple roles Of the successful women 50 per cent had children. These women did not perceive work and family to be mutually exclusive. Some felt that career and family were mutually enriching and they felt that a stable base was important when pursuing a career. These women did nd that they did not have a lot of time to spend with their families but they suggested the time they did have was quality time. These statements suggest that work and family need not conict but that the multiple roles may offer unique psychological benets. These benets will full different needs (e.g. growth needs, security needs, the need to belong). What appears to be important is the quality of role involvement rather then role occupancy per se. The timing of career commitment As described in the stage model 35 per cent of the women were dedicated to a career from an early age. The development of career centrality was found to be delayed among other women until they rejected the role of housewife or were separated from a partner. The commitment to career following divorce or separation may raise womens awareness of their own needs. They may then undergo a period under which they redene their identity. They are forced to question their identity in relation to others i.e. their partner and family. It is feasible that at this point these women will begin to dene themselves in terms of their abilities and attributes. In Gilligans[34] terms, separation from a partner may stimulate the convergence of perspectives of connected and separate selves. The origins of aspirations The role of aspirations in the development of career commitment is not clear. Farmer[22] claims that social economic status and ability will determine aspirations. In addition encouragement from others is said to promote higher aspirations. The current argument would suggest that aspirations may be raised as a result of the enhancement cycle whereby competence generates psychological success and, hence, desire for greater challenge.

career behaviour is a triple helix. Each strand in the helix has its own impetus and characteristics. The three structures are said to interact with each other in two distinct ways: (1) during steady states between transitions (the issue is balancing); and (2) at transition points (the issue is the critical impact of events). We may conceptualize Halls[13] model of sub-identities as a cross-section through the triple helix. Although there is not a direct correspondence in the diagrammatical representation, the thickness of the stands in the helix may be related to the size of the subidentity. It has been mentioned throughout this discussion that successful women have high career centrality. The timing of the growth of the career sub-identity varies among the women, but the majority have resolved the conict and crystallized their career aspirations by their mid-20s. The points of crossover in the helix equate to the overlap between the sub-identities. These points of crossover correspond closely to the periods of transition in the lives of successful women. The data derived from the current study provide information on only the career and family strands in the helical structure. These data appear to conrm Rapoport and Rapoports[19] description of the interaction between the two strands. The successful women experienced periods of stability during which they maintained a satisfactory balance between their work and family lives. These periods of stability are followed by periods of questioning and change. During these periods the women have a heightened awareness of the reciprocal impact of career and family on each other. These periods of transition represent the main points of departure from the careers of men as described by Levinson et al.[8]. The schematic representation of the careers of successful women is shown in Figure 4.

Conclusion
The model of successful womens life span development showed that the majority of successful women displayed high career centrality. These women worked continuously and full-time, tting their domestic responsibilities around work or choosing to remain childless. Continuous full-time employment 13

Modelling the careers of successful women

Rapoport and Rapoport[19] have suggested that an appropriate model for considering

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Figure 4 A double helix model illustrating the lifespan development of successful women

tion of work and nonwork, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Vol. 41, 1992, pp. 101-61. 7 Super, D.E., The Psychology of Careers, Harper, New York, NY, 1957.

Family sub-identity

Career sub-identity Maintenance (50+) Achievement (40-50) Late-30s transition (38-40) Settling down (35) Early-30s transition (33-35) Establishment (25-33) Entering adult world (mid-20s) Early adult transition (17-25) Exploration "finding the thread"

8 Levinson, D., Darrow, C.N., Klein, E.B., Levinson, M.H. and Mckee, B., The Seasons in a Mans Life, Knopf, New York, NY, 1978. 9 Orstein, S., Cron, W.L. and Slocum, J.W., Life stage versus career stage: a comparative test of the theories of Levinson and Super, Journal of Organizations Behaviour, Vol. 10, 1989, pp. 117-33. 10 Orstein, S. and Isabella, L., Age vs stage models of career attitudes of women: a partial replication and extension, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Vol. 36, 1990, pp. 1-19. 11 Pahl, J.M. and Pahl, R.E., Managers and Their Wives, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971. 12 Scase, R. and Goffee, R., Reluctant Managers: Their Work and Lifestyles, Unwin Hyman, London, 1989. 13 Hall, D.T., Careers in Organisations, Goodyear, Santa Monica, CA, 1976. 14 Berthould, R., Unemployed Professionals and Executive, Free Press, New York, NY, 1979. 15 Hearn, J., Towards a concept of non-career, Sociological Review, Vol. 25, 1977. 16 Marshall, J., Women Managers Travellers in a Male World, Wiley, Chichester, 1994. 17 Hennig, M. and Jardim, A., The Managerial Woman, Marion Boyars, London, 1978. 18 Larwood, L. and Gutek, B.A., Working towards a theory of womens career development, in Gutek, B.A. and Larwood, L., Womens Career Development, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1987. 19 Rapoport, R. and Rapoport, R.N., Balancing work, family and leisure: a triple helix model, in Derr, C.B. (Ed.), Work, Family and the Career, Praeger Publishing, New York, NY, 1980. 20 Kingston, P.W., Studying the work and family connection: a theoretical progress, ideological bias and shaky foundations for policy, in Goldsmith, E. (Ed.), Work and Family, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1989. 21 Lambert, S.J., Processing linking work and family: a critical review and research agenda, Human Relations, Vol. 43, 1990, pp. 239-57. 22 Farmer, H.S., Model of career and achievement motivation for women and men, Journal of Counselling Psychology, Vol. 32 No. 3, 1985, pp. 363-90. 23 Harmon, L.W. and Farmer, H.S., Current theoretical issues in vocational psychology, in Walsh, W.B. and Osipow, S.H. (Eds), Handbook of Vocational Psychology: Volume One, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1987. 24 Bandura, A., Social Learning Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1977. 25 Valliant, G.E., Adaptation to Life, Little Brown, Boston, MA, 1978. 26 Driver, M.J., Career concepts and career management in organisations, in Cooper, C.L. (Ed.), Behavioural Problems in Organisations, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1979.

Career helical strand

Family helical strand

appears to be a prerequisite for career success. These ndings suggest that if we are to achieve genuine equality in all aspects of life then change is required in the prevailing stereotype of a successful career. We would agree with Hirsh and Jackson[39] who have suggested that careers should be accommodated around the reality of womens lives allowing them to make a meaningful investment in both occupational and family roles.

References
1 Hansard Society, The Report of the Hansard Society Commission on Women at the Top, Hansard Society, London, 1990. 2 Metcalf, H., Employers Response to the Decline in School Leavers into the 1990s, IME Report No. 172, Institute of Manpower Studies, University of Sussex, 1988. 3 Institute for Employment Research, Review of the Economy and Employment Occupational Update 1988, University of Warwick, 1988. 4 Betz, N.E. and Fitzgerald, L.F., The Career Psychology of Women, Academic Press, New York, NY, 1987. 5 Larwood, L. and Gatticker, U.E., A comparison of the career paths used by successful men and women, in Gutek, B.A. and Larwood, L., Womens Career Development, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1987. 6 Swanson, J.L., Vocational behaviour, 1989-1991: life-span career development and reciprocal interac-

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The career development of successful women

Women in Management Review Volume 10 Number 3 1995 415

Barbara White

27 Adams, J.M., When working women become pregnant, New England Business, February 1984, pp. 18-21. 28 Festinger, L., A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 111 Row Peterson, Evanston, 1957. 29 Howard, A., Work and family crossroads spanning the career, in Zedeck, S. (Ed.), Work Families and Organizations, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1992. 30 Maslow, A.H., Motivation and Personality, rev. ed., Harper Row, New York, NY, 1970. 31 Stein, A.H. and Bailey, M.M., The socialisation of achievement orientation in females, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 80, 1973, pp. 345-66. 32 Barwick, J.M., The Psychology of Women: A Study of Bisocial Conict, Harper Row, New York, NY, 1971. 33 Tangri, S.S., Determinant of occupational role innovation among college women, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 38, 1972, pp. 177-99.

34 Gilligan, C., In a Different Voice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982. 35 Parsons, T., Family structure and socialisation of the child, in Parsons, T. and Bales, R.F. (Eds), Family Socialisation and Interaction Process, Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1965. 36 Lynn, D.B., Parental Identication and Sex Role, McCutchan, Berkley, CA, 1969. 37 Cooper, C.L. and Cox, C., The High Flyers, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1988. 38 Arnold, V. and Davidson, M.J., Adopt a mentor the way ahead for women managers?, Women in Management Review and Abstracts, Vol. 5 No. 3, 1990, pp. 123-30. 39 Hirsh, W. and Jackson, C., Women into management: issues inuencing the entry of women in managerial jobs, IMS Paper, No. 158, 1990.

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