Gendered Interpretations of Job Loss and Subsequent Professional Pathways

Aliya Hamid Rao

doi:10.1177/08912432211046303

Abstract

While we know that career interruptions shape men’s and women’s professional trajectories, we know less about how job loss may matter for this process. Drawing on interviews with unemployed, college-educated men and women in professional occupations, I show that while both men and women interpret their job loss as due to impersonal “business” decisions, women additionally attribute their job loss as arising from employers’ “personal” decisions. Men’s job loss shapes their subsequent preferred professional pathways, but never in a way that diminishes the importance of their participation in the labor force. For some women in this study, job loss becomes a moment to reflect on their professional pathways, often pulling them back from paid work. This study identifies job loss as an event that, on top of gendered workplace experiences and caregiving obligations, may curtail some women’s participation in paid work.

Highlights

Job loss is prevalent in the contemporary U.S economy
I draw on interviews with privileged but unemployed men and women to elucidate how gender matters for interpretations of job loss and how men and women imagine their professional pathways after losing their jobs
This research shows that gendered interpretations of job loss may feed into how unemployed individuals imagine their professional pathways

Summary

Introduction

Job loss is prevalent in the contemporary U.S economy. In 2020, the economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the loss of millions of jobs in the United States (Kochhar 2020). Prior research has Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions paid little attention to how job loss—experienced on top of gendered workplace experiences and uneven caregiving obligations—may shape men’s and women’s professional pathways differently. Extending prior research on women’s devaluation in paid work, I show that devaluation experiences become salient for some women as they try to understand their job loss. This article bridges research on unemployment with research on gender inequality in the labor force by explaining how job loss is emerging as a pivotal experience shaping men’s and women’s professional pathways. Rao / PROFESSIONAL PATHWAYS AFTER JOB LOSS 3 workplaces reward an “ideal” worker who can prioritize paid work above all else (Acker 1990; Williams 2000). Organizations are gendered because deep-rooted beliefs about who is competent or has leadership abilities tend to overwhelmingly favor men (Schilt 2006)

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