Two adult women managing career and family after mature higher education: alternative notions of agency?

Abstract

This biographical case study explores how two South Korean middle-aged married women have managed their career and their family commitments over the period of 9 years after their mature higher education. In doing this, this study focuses on the role of agency with reference to the structure of gender throughout these women’s experiences. Biographical narrative interviews were conducted four times over the 9 years to trace various changes to their lives. The analysis suggests that the two women’s agencies were ostensibly different, but were quintessentially embedded within their intimate relationships in common. Drawing on the empirical evidence, this study seeks to address alternative notions of agency that highlight endurance, interdependence with close relations, emotion and affection, which exert a gradual but powerful impact on others and society. This study, therefore, disturbs the prevalent notions of a self-directed and rationalistic model of agency and its individualistic and dichotomous relation with structure.