Heroic Career Changers? Gendered Identity Work in Career Transitions

Abstract

This article contributes to the literature on agency and its constraints in new careers by focusing on the role of gender in identity work. Drawing on the concept of positioning, this article offers a longitudinal and contextualized analysis of identity work among Finnish female business graduates considering career change. The study shows how identity work is gendered in three respects: via the masculine position of a career changer in master narratives of career change, the positions used to account for the need to change careers and the positions at the heart of identity struggles. This article problematizes individualistic new career discourses by showing how gender, intersecting with age, constrains identity work in career change. However, it also brings to light possibilities for agency via alternative resources of identity.