Career Hunting: The Generation, Gender Gap
Ms. Kay E. MAKISHI (U.S.A.)The Generation Gap
Flexibility, upward mobility, and work-life balance are some key aspects the current
American generation seeks for in a career. Popular industries include technology,business, and health services. Particularly in the technology and business industries,
globalization is kindling more overseas ties which affect how work relationships arebeing conducted in the US due to differences in location and time zones. For example,
emailing and teleconferencing are vital to operations in many industries. All thesefactors that coincide with the change in the current generation’s work landscape demand
and allow for flexibility from both employees and managers. It also greatly affects thepursuit of gender equality.
In addition, job hopping has become the norm in the US. According to the Bureau ofLabor Statistics, people in their early 50’s held an average of 11 jobs from ages 18 to 46.
Networking is the buzz word
and the constant evolution oftechnology allows this to bedone easier now than in thepast.

For

media

platforms

LinkedIn,

example,aresocialsuchasspecificallycreated to help build one’sprofessionalcommonnetwork.

phraseheardAincollege these days regarding
advice to students looking forjobs is, “it’s all about who youknow”.
The Breadwinner and HomemakerIn past generations, males tended to be viewed as ‘breadwinners’, meaning a mainincome earner of a family while females often fulfilled a domestic role as homemakers
and were solely responsible for childrearing. This gender stereotype is graduallydissipating as more women feel and become empowered.
There is a saying, “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” Meaning, you can’t doboth things; you must choose one or the other. In the case of females, this metaphor often
referred to those two things as having a career and raising children. Today, the morecommon saying you hear is, “you can have your cake and eat it, too.” According to Forbes,
the number of women in law school has gone from 4% in 1963 to 44% in 2012, and thenumber in medical school increased from 6% to 49%. Though there is momentum throughthis critical mass, there is still a lot more work needed to achieve gender equality in theUS.
The Gender Difference
The fact that more women are joining the workforce and achieving managerial andexecutive positions is encouraging women with careers to be the new standard. C-level
female executives such as Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook who graduated fromHarvard Business School and also wrote the book Lean In, serve as role models for more
women to take control of their careers.
In the US, work-life balance is the key and both women and men seek it in theircareers. However, women tend to seek more flexibility than men since the majority ofresponsibilities for childcare are still often laid upon women.
In my case, being in my mid-20’s and looking forward to advancing my career in
addition to one day raising a family, telecommuting in terms of flexibility is an important
aspect I look for in a job.
The highest paying jobs for women are in health care, business and computer science,according to Forbes. Women in these fields can earn and are earning over $100,000 ayear. However, women are still recorded to earn just 82% of their male counterparts. Jobs
in engineering and hard sciences are still dominated by males, while the majority ofnursing and caretaker positions are held by females.
Regardless of all these existing inequalities, society is on the right track with more
and more women feeling empowered to pursue both a career and raising a family in
addition to a shift in consciousness at the workplace. Moreover, women empowerment is
not just about women. It is about men, too. Because without men sharing responsibilities
regarding house chores and child rearing, women cannot have the freedom or time to beable to become successful inside and outside the home. It takes both genders to be awareof each other’s goals. Only through respect, compromise as well as increased
understanding from employers and a change in the work environment, true genderequality can be achieved.