Combining Competing Devotions: How Work, Family, and Lifestyle Factors Shape Medical Trainees' Career Decisions

• In Event: 328 - Regular Session: Gender and Work: Structure, Culture, and Emotions

Abstract

How do men and women make career decisions during the early stages of career formation? How do work and family factors matter in these decisions? Using 61 in-depth interviews, I explore how medical trainees (students and residents) make two important decisions: specialty choice, and whether to receive further sub-specialization training. I capitalize on the structured nature of medical training to sample men and women making similar career decisions, at the time they are being made, to document gender similarities and differences in approaches to work-family problems. I find that schemas of devotion to work, family, and lifestyle play key roles in shaping medical trainees’ narratives surrounding their decisions. I also find important gender differences and similarities in the role of schemas in career decision-making. Findings have implications for how we may support medical trainees throughout their training, as well as broader implications for gendered occupational segregation.

Author

• Katherine Y. Lin, University of Wisconsin - Madison