Abstract
Want for a career in knowledge age is natural for any gender, so is for women of Pakistan. The long working hours and inflexible hard routines make it difficult for women to pursue both family and career at the same time. The paper validates an urgent need to revise work-time and work-space for the 21st century women with evolving meanings of career and life satisfaction for them. A qualitative inquiry was aimed to explore the career aspirations of Pakistani women and the opportunities they get for flexible work arrangements at their workplaces. Data was collected from 40 women working in a variety of professions through 3 focus groups, and 16 semistructured interviews. Interpretive analysis was used to derive detailed description through data. The perceptions of Pakistani women are highly gendered about their roles at home and work. They suffer from time bind, unable to manage their professional needs and their desire to have a successful married and family life. Whether married or unmarried, they found professional work hours highly stressful which are not only draining their physical and emotional energy, but affecting their social life and relationships, as well. With a poor sense of quality of life, it is hard to say whether women experience career satisfaction or satisfice.
Highlights
The dynamics of the work-world are changing in the 21st century
We find that the relationship between flexible work arrangements and career satisfaction is understudied
Three focus groups were conducted with young females in the early stage of their careers to determine their career aspirations, and the influence of work schedules on their career satisfaction
Summary
The dynamics of the work-world are changing in the 21st century. After the liberalization of society and workplace, loads of women are entering job markets after getting specialized higher education and training (Booth & Van Ours, 2010). They enter any job bearing similar characteristics as their male counterparts, their traveling on the career path is not similar; it lags behind in terms of pay, advancement and promotion opportunities (Burke, Koyuncu, & Wolpin, 2012). Working part-time or on reduced schedules is considered more feminized, because the contemporary women in industrial societies still adhere to the traditionally established gender-roles
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