-
2. The Real “Opt-Out Revolution” and a New Model of Flexible Careers
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
| 57 2 The Real “Opt-Out Revolution” and a New Model of Flexible Careers Kerstin Aumann and Ellen Galinsky In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion about the “optout revolution”—the notion that educated, professional women with small children choose to leave the workplace to focus on their families instead of their careers (Belkin, 2003). The basic thesis of the opt-out revolution has been challenged on a number of fronts, including whether it is an accurate reflection of the changes among women with and without children in their labor force participation (e.g., Kreider and Elliott, 2009; Graff, 2007; Boushey, 2005). In this chapter, we argue that the debate has missed a very important point. Because there has been a focus on women who leave the workforce, the opt-out debate has neglected a more significant trend with far-reaching implications among those who remain in the workforce. New data from the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW), a nationally representative telephone survey of the American workforce conducted by the Families and Work Institute every five years, show that a number of employees—women and men alike—are “opting out” of wanting to move up the traditional career ladder to positions with increasing levels of responsibility . This presents a serious challenge for employers who continue to see career progression as a ladder and yet who need to develop and manage the talents of future leaders to ensure that their organization will both survive and thrive over the long term. We propose that diminished career aspirations among American employees reflect a different kind of revolution that deserves attention and should redefine the opt-out debate. The discussion should be extended beyond women who choose to leave the workforce to include both women and men who are employed, but do not desire to advance to jobs with more responsibility . Further, it should focus on a notion of flexible careers, acknowledging that employees’ career aspirations are fluid as individuals move through different life stages and are faced with different issues and tasks in their lives 58 | The Real “Opt-Out Revolution” and a New Model of Flexible Careers on and off the job. Thus, career paths should be viewed as dynamic and flexible as individuals negotiate work and personal responsibilities in various life stages—this might include increasing engagement and commitment at work, seeking advancement at some times while scaling back work hours and career aspirations or temporarily leaving the workforce at other times. A few forward-looking companies have noted this reality among their employees and one corporation, Deloitte, has replaced the notion of a “career ladder” with a “career lattice” (Benko and Weisberg, 2007). At the Families and Work Institute, we use the term “flexible careers.” We begin this chapter by presenting NSCW data from 1992 to 2008 on employees’ desire to advance to jobs with more responsibility and showing that we can no longer assume that most employees generally have a desire to advance to jobs with greater responsibility. Given that traditional approaches to career development assuming a linear trajectory of jobs with increasing levels of responsibility no longer adequately seem to capture the reality of much of the American workforce, we then argue that a framework for thinking about careers and desire for advancement as flexible, dynamic constructs is needed. We argue that employees’ career aspirations are ultimately a function of the interaction between individual and environmental factors. Thus, to understand how employees’ career aspirations may change over time, we need to consider factors at multiple levels: the macrolevel sociocultural and economic context as well as the workplace and the individual level, examining their effects on the psychological processes by which individuals derive meaning from their experiences on and off the job and develop a desire for jobs with more, or the same, or less responsibility. After proposing a multilevel framework for flexible careers, we draw on NSCW data to examine emerging macrolevel trends in gender roles and their impact on individuals at work and at home. Further, we present some NSCW data to highlight relationships between the proposed psychological processes that shape employees ’ desired level of responsibility at work. We conclude by discussing how workplace effectiveness and person-organization fit can help make work “work” for employees at various stages of their careers and personal lives. The Career Aspirations of Employees in the United States Have Changed over Time A comparison of NSCW data from 1992 to 2008 on employees’ desire to...