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Keywords
Women, Careers, Professionals, Quality of working life, Lifestyles
Abstract
This exploratory study focuses primarily on the nature and components of the midlife transition and secondarily considers its antecedents and consequences for a group of 36 professional women who were married, had children, and had enduring careers. In-depth interviews with these women provided the data for our analysis. The results suggest that age, family characteristics, and employment characteristics influence the transition. In addition, the women rebalance and develop new perspectives at midlife. Components of the resulting internal and external recalibration are identified. This recalibration resulted in increased satisfaction and overall well-being.
Introduction
The midlife period has been described as a developmental bridge between early and late adulthood. Early research focused on professional men and viewed midlife as a crisis or an anomaly in an otherwise smooth, incremental, and systematic pattern of career development (Levinson, 1978). More recent research has included women and has characterized the reassessment at midlife as part of normal developmental change that involves a series of more modest midcourse corrections (Stewart and Vandewater, 1999; Stewart and Ostrove, 1998). Researchers now generally agree that the midlife stage involves an assessment and rebalancing of the personal and professional components of a person's life. The exact nature and components of this rebalancing, as well as its causes and consequences, for professional women have not been extensively studied. Understanding the life experiences of professional women, particularly those who are married and have children, has become increasingly important as organizations look for ways to retain professional women with management responsibilities and executive aspirations. We want to understand the transition itself, and we address the following research question: What are the antecedents, nature and specific components, and outcomes of the midlife transition for professional women?
Background
Figure 1 presents the model of midlife as described in existing research. The model suggests that age, family characteristics, and employment characteristics influence the midlife transition, which we define as the shift from the attitudes and behaviors of early life to those of midlife. The transition in turn influences individual work and life satisfaction and overall well-being.
Antecedents of the midlife experience
Midlife is the time when external changes in the person's life reach the threshold of perception....