Opting out: professional women develop reflexive agency

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-06-2018-0097
• Published date: 19 August 2019
• Pages: 619-633
• Date: 19 August 2019
• Author: Ingrid Biese,Marta Choroszewicz
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

Opting out: professional women

develop reflexive agency

Ingrid Biese

The Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, and

Marta Choroszewicz

The Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland,

Joensuu, Finland

Abstract

Purpose –While previous research on opting out has been mainly about women who leave their careers altogether,

the purpose of this paper is to follow a broader definition of opting out to investigate the process and experience of

women developing agency as they leave masculinist career patterns to adopt alternative career solutions.

Design/methodology/approach –Building on an interdisciplinary framework and a narrative approach,

this paper analyses the opting out and in processes of women managers in Finland and the USA.

Findings –This paper demonstrates four micro-strategies that the women used to develop individual agency

in their processes of opting out of masculinist career models and opting in to alternative solutions for work.

These micro-strategies are redefining career success, transcending boundaries, renegotiating working

conditions and keeping in touch with professional networks.

Practical implications –Organisational leaders can use the knowledge of the strategies that empower women

in their opting out processes when making decisions regarding working practices. In order to retain their

employees, organisations should be supportive of employees’individual agency and their participation in

developing work structures, as well as providing more opportunities for two-way blurring between work and

family instead of the current one-way blurring where work spills overto family life, increasing work-family conflict.

Originality/value –This paper develops a framework to better understand women’s agency during the

process of opting out of corporate careers and opting in to solutions like part-time work and self-employment,

deepening the current understanding of these solutions and presenting the micro-strategies they use to

develop reflexive agency.

Keywords Women, Agency, Work-life balance, Flexible careers, Masculinist career patterns, Opting out

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Ever since Lisa Belkin (2003) coined the term “opt-out revolution”, the issue of women opting out

of careers has been widely debated ( Jones, 2012). As the debate has focused on women who

leave the work force altogether, it has missed important aspects of professional women’s

experiences and agency. This paper, thus, broadens the definition of opting out to include opting

in to other solutions for work, as most of the current research has not adequately captured

women who continue working but on different terms. In addition, while focus has been on push

factors and questions of gender discrimination (see Cossman, 2009), this paper explores question

of agency. Opting out is not simply a case of womengivingupontheircareerplans,butcanalso

be a way for them to develop the agency to create alternativesolutions for work, reorganise their

lives and be both career women and mothers in a more sustainable way. This paper develops a

framework to understand how opting out as a mode of agency enables them to do that.

It has been argued that if women do opt out of their careers, it is because they are being

pushed out of masculinist working cultures as a result of gender discrimination and an

environmentthat does not support women (Stone,2007). Prevalent masculinistcareer patterns

are characterised by norms of continuous and uninterrupted work, and neither support, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 6, 2019

pp. 619-633

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-06-2018-0097

Received 20 June 2018

Revised 8 November 2018

23 January 2019

Accepted 11 February 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

The authors would like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who helped make this paper what it

finally became with their constructive comments and suggestions. The authors special thanks go to the

reviewer who suggested the term micro-strategies, which became a central part of our results.

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Opting out