Careers of Professional Women

Women’s current life pattern was typically: school – training – work – withdrawal – retirement. Despite the existence of this pattern, agencies responsible for education, training and employment failed to recognise it as normal, often treating women as special cases. Thus there was a lack of flexibility in employment and insufficient retraining or part-time work. The problem was important both for qualified women who had made a considerable personal investment in a career, and for the nation in terms of effective manpower utilisation. The skills required in many occupations traditionally entered by women are either learnt on the job or by means of relatively short formal training courses. This book, however, examines in some depth seven careers which require a minimum of three years’ training. After a foreword by Baroness Nancy Seear and a chapter which introduces the concept of the ‘bimodal’ career and the consequent problems of withdrawal and re-entry, each chapter is written by an author who has conducted original research into the occupation under discussion, and specifically into women’s personal experiences in that particular calling. A concluding chapter considers the implications of the findings both for the individuals concerned and for social policy.