Characteristics of women’s careers: international studies review

Abstract

Introduction. Career development has become one of the most significant areas of human resource management in modern organizations. Despite considerable progress in increasing the representation of women in various industries and also a multiplication of women holding senior positions, today, the segregation of the labour market persists. Women and men are unevenly distributed in such fields as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; there are differences in wages and career advancement. Traditional career models have certain limitations in research and, therefore, require revision and updating.Purpose. Generalization of foreign experience of gender studies in the field of women’s professional careers.Materials and methods. The scientific review is presented by a systematic analysis of foreign gender studies over the past 10-15 years.Theoretical justification. The authors describe the main methods of studies examining women’s career advancement and also consider the causes of gender segregation, such as career choice, gender discrimination in employment and the workplace, and the phenomenon of the “glass ceiling”. Factors influencing the choice of career strategies are competitiveness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, the influence of cultural perceptions of gender roles, self-stereotyping, the presence or absence of role models, the social costs of women’s careers and the possibility of their recognition by society as professionals.Discussion and conclusion. A possible way to solve the problem of women’s career advancement may be to reduce the pressure of gender stereotypes, including even the distribution of household and child-rearing responsibilities and, ultimately, contributing to the improvement of well-being and life quality in general.