Gender, Parenting and Managerial Ambition in Social Work

Abstract

• Summary: This paper presents original research data on the topic of gender and managerial careers in social services. Case study research has been carried out in one English Social Services Department (SSD) and the data has been analysed from a post-structuralist perspective. • Findings: The project concludes that caring responsibilities in the domestic domain impede the likelihood of women progressing to senior management. This is because the dominant construction of management is more compatible with fatherhood than motherhood. Child care arrangements are negotiated within both the domestic domain and the workplace. Not only are power relations involved, but also the positions taken on parenting and child care contribute to the construction of gendered subjectivity. Managerial ambition cannot be understood outside this complex interplay of identification, desire, anxiety and cultural constraint. • Application: Whilst policy initiatives and wider developments in gender relations are applauded, the deep-seated resistance to change is also acknowledged. Changing the managerial environment is not only a simple matter of employers and policy makers developing new employment structures that more effectively enable the combination of caring and managerial responsibilities.