ABSTRACT
The context of women’s career development is a multilevel one, comprised of the immediate family setting, the women’s social support network, and their community, societal, and cultural milieus, along with their associated institutions. Women in dual-career families pursue demanding professional or managerial careers that may result in special stresses on her as well as on the family as a whole. Self-directedness, in turn, has been found to be important and necessary in high levels of career salience and career orientation in women. The demographic data about the contemporary features of women’s careers is relatively mute about the individual-psychological antecedents or consequences of women’s work lives. The historical dimension is perhaps the superordinate element of the context. There exists considerable scholarship about historical changes in women’s careers. Major demographic feature of the contemporary American family that is having a major impact on women’s employment is the increase in single parent households.
