Career, Marriage, and Family Aspirations of Young Black College Women

Abstract

Currently over half the university degrees in the United States, the Soviet Union, and many other western countries are granted to women (Gutek, 1988). Large numbers of these women will go on to graduate school and enter traditionally male fields such as law and business. Many, if not most, will want to marry and have children. Yet, in combining a fulltime career with family life, these women will have to make critical decisions about when to marry, when to plan for children, and how to divide their time between professional obligations and home chores. As journalist Cokie Roberts recently told the all-female graduating class at Bryn Mawr College: All of us learned we have to combine careers and family. You can do it all (Bryn Mawr College, 1990). However, Roberts also added that, in doing it all, women just don't sleep much. Epstein and Bronzaft (1972) examined the impact of the women's movement of the 1960s on the career aspirations of college women. In their study of women in a 1970 freshman class at a large urban university, they found that 48% of these women expected to marry, raise a family, and pursue a career. By 1974 the number of women's studies courses offered on college campuses increased, significantly raising women's and men's consciousness regarding issues of gender and sexism. Thus, when Bronzaft (1974) queried a sample of 210 seniors (approximately 20% of the original sample she had tested in 1970), she found that 79% of the college women surveyed expected to have a career, marry, and have children. Morgan (1990) reports that undergraduate college women expect to take time off from their careers to have children and then return to work when their children start school. Yet, as Lamb (1987) notes, even when they return to their careers, however, these women will still carry the burden of responsibility for child care. Additionally, reviews of investigations examining the involvement of husbands and employed wives in housework duties conclude that wives still carry out the largest share of household chores (Thompson & Walker, 1989; Smith & Reid, 1986).