Confronting Career Double Binds Essay

Journal of Career Development http://jcd.sagepub.com Confronting Career Double Binds: Implications for Women,
Organizations, and Career Practitioners
Mary Shapiro, Cynthia Ingols and Stacy Blake-Beard
Journal of Career Development 2008; 34; 309
DOI: 10.1177/0894845307311250
The online version of this article can be found at: http://jcd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/3/309 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:

University of Missouri-Columbia

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In 2000, there were 1.3 million business bankruptcies, almost double the 1990 number (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2003a). Outsourcing, estimated at $301 billion in 2004, is up from
$125 billion in 2000 (Brainard & Litan, 2004). More than 587,000 jobs were projected to migrate overseas in 2005. By 2015, this figure is expected to be
3,320,000 (“America’s Newest Export,” 2004). DeBell (2001) offers a harrowing glimpse at the speed at which new organizations are emerging and old ones are dying: One third of the Fortune 500 companies that existed in 1980 no longer existed as independent entities in 1990 (p. 83). As a result of this

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Shapiro et al. / Confronting Career Double Binds 313

organizational upheaval, the psychological contract between employee and employer has been disrupted, most likely permanently (Rousseau, 1990). In
1950, when the definition of career included an often lifetime commitment to one company, the average professional worked at no more than a few companies over the course of a career. Today, that worker holds nearly 10 different
Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, 2005).
As women have moved into the world of work, the structure of the
American family has changed. Only 35% of American families today have the “traditional” structure of two parents with their own biological children

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314 Journal of Career Development / March 2008

under 18, whereas in the 1950s close to 49% of Americans did so (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2003b). The number of stay-at-home mothers has dramatically shrunk. In 1950, 24% of two-parent families saw both husband and wife in the workforce; by 2000, that rose to 72% (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2000). In 1960, only 19% of married women with school-age children were in the labor market. In 1990, 71% of those mothers were employed outside the home (DeBell, 2001, p. 80; U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). The demographic foundation provided by stay-at-home mothers that permitted the
“work is primary” career model has dissolved. Working fathers could no longer ignore all the “secondary” aspects of their lives, namely, child care, dry cleaning, and housework.