Gender roles, identity development, and the gender traditionalism of career aspirations

Despite many efforts to increase women's participation in nontraditional careers, men and women continue to be concentrated in gender traditional careers. Longitudinal studies indicate gender role is one important factor in this outcome. For example, women who began college aspiring to nontraditional careers in the sciences often changed their aspirations due to concerns for balancing future relational and familial roles with occupational roles. To further understand aspirations, researchers recommend the application of ego identity formation to the study of career development. The present study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the career choices of men and women by integrating the bodies of literature on identity, gender role, and aspiration development.; To examine the relationships among gender role orientation, identity development, and the gender traditionalism of occupational aspirations, 578 college men and women completed measures assessing gender roles, ego identity statuses, and career aspirations during classes in education, engineering, and business, providing a diverse sample of gender traditional, nontraditional, and neutral career aspirations. Data analyses revealed that men and women with the most gender traditional aspirations had more traditional gender roles, masculine for men and feminine for women, and foreclosed identity status, where they committed to identities without exploring alternatives often for sex-typed reasons, humanitarian or familial for women and utilitarian or monetary for men. Traditional gender roles were predictive of the gender traditionalism of aspirations. Further analysis of the relationship between identity development and aspirations revealed that even when women explored nontraditional aspirations and identities, they committed to more traditional ones, demonstrating a relationship between identity development and previous research on gender roles and traditional aspirations.; Gender roles and career aspirations are highly valued components of identity. When men and women construct their identities, they make choices about what roles to prioritize, balancing their interests and abilities with societal expectations. For the psychological well being that comes from committing to identities that are socially valued, men and women often choose gender traditional careers.