Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Noting a phenomenon that might seem to recall a previous era, The New York Times Magazine recently portrayed women who leave their careers in order to become full-time mothers as "opting out." But, are high-achieving professional women really choosing to abandon their careers in order to return home? This provocative study is the first to tackle this issue from the perspective of the women themselves. Based on a series of candid, in-depth interviews with women who returned home after working as doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and other professions, Pamela Stone explores the role that their husbands, children, and coworkers play in their decision; how women's efforts to construct new lives and new identities unfold once they are home; and where their aspirations and plans for the future lie. What we learn-contrary to many media perceptions-is that these high-flying women are not opting out but are instead being pushed out of the workplace. Drawing on their experiences, Stone outlines concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for women-and men-to attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.

Stay-at-home mothers. --- Work and family. --- Choice (Psychology) --- Life change events. --- Events, Life change --- Experiences, Stressful life --- Life events, Stressful --- Life experiences, Stressful --- Stressful events --- Stressful life events --- Developmental psychology --- Experience --- Stress (Psychology) --- Psychology --- Families and work --- Family and work --- Families --- Dual-career families --- Work-life balance --- Stay-at-home moms --- Mothers --- american culture. --- american society. --- bankers. --- career. --- caring for a family. --- children. --- cultural pressures. --- cultural studies. --- doctors. --- family and career. --- family matters. --- family. --- gender and labor. --- gender equality. --- gender expectations. --- gender norms. --- gender studies. --- lawyers. --- men and women. --- motherhood. --- mothers. --- parenthood. --- privatized family. --- professional women. --- pushed out of the workplace. --- returning home. --- scientists. --- sociology. --- staying home with kids. --- time demanding jobs. --- united states of america. --- women and work.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Taking a career break is a conflicted and risky decision for high-achieving professional women. Yet many do so, usually planning, even as they quit, to return to work eventually. But can they? And if so, how? In Opting Back In, Pamela Stone and Meg Lovejoy revisit women first interviewed a decade earlier in Stone's book Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home to answer these questions. In frank and intimate accounts, women lay bare the dilemmas they face upon reentry. Most succeed but not by returning to their former high-paying, still family-inhospitable jobs. Instead, women strike out in new directions, finding personally gratifying but lower-paid jobs in the gig economy or predominantly female nonprofit sector. Opting Back In uncovers a paradox of privilege by which the very women best positioned to achieve leadership and close gender gaps use strategies to resume their careers that inadvertently reinforce gender inequality. The authors advocate gender equitable policies that will allow women-and all parents-to combine the intense demands of work and family life in the twenty-first century.

Women --- Work and family --- Choice (Psychology) --- Life change events --- Employment re-entry --- 21st century. --- back to work. --- break. --- career. --- feminist. --- gender equality. --- gender gap. --- gender inequality. --- gender studies. --- gig economy. --- inspiring. --- leadership. --- modern world. --- motivational. --- nonprofit. --- privilege. --- professional women. --- professional world. --- professional. --- re entering the workforce. --- return to work. --- staying home. --- strong women. --- struggles. --- time off. --- true stories. --- women in power. --- women in the workplace. --- womens issues. --- working women.