The Emerging Mutable Self: Gender Dynamics and Creative Adaptations in Defining Work, Family, and the Future

This analytical article develops a framework to examine how contemporary young adults approach work, family, and their own personal futures, by building upon a program of research involving in-depth interviews with advanced law and MBA students. I argue that the sociology of work and family could be greatly enhanced by taking account of the shifting nature of the self in light of transformations over recent decades associated with the new individualism, changes in gender roles and family life, and the demise of stable career trajectories for professionals and managers. An elaborated version of Zurcher's thesis about the mutable self is presented as a means for understanding how young adults in succeeding generations will go about defining institutional commitments across the life course.