ABSTRACT
It is an honour to be asked to address the implications for research of this ambitious international exploration of women's career development across the lifespan. This exploration actually comprises two different areas of focus, an interdisciplinary research dimension followed by a collaborative qualitative research project across nine countries. In this chapter, we address a number of major implications for research based on these two areas of focus. Both areas of focus support a shift in discourse from speaking about women's career development to speaking about women's (and men’s) working lives (Patton 2013; Richardson and Schaeffer 2013a, 2013b), a discourse that we use throughout the chapter. In this new discourse, women’s (and men’s) working lives refer to both market work (work that is paid) and unpaid care work (work to care for self, others, and community that is not paid). We then consider implications of the new discourse for research.
