November 2007 Mothers & More POWER Loop Guest

Pamela Stone, author of Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home

After years of what she refers to as “participant observation,” Pamela Stone, Associate Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, noticed that waves of high-powered career women were leaving the workforce to stay at home with their children.

In response, she conducted an in-depth qualitative study to determine if the media’s position on this growing trend was in fact true: Were women voluntarily “opting out” of their careers or were other factors in play? While an increasing number of companies experienced retention problems with their most talented female professionals, the media continued to report that the phenomenon was due to women choosing to leave, rather than due to the inherent constraints and inflexibility of existing work place models. Notes Dr. Stone, “The obligatory literature search yielded few answers. This particular group of women, having exited the labor force, appeared to have gone missing.”

Pamela Stone received her BA with honors from Duke University and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, both in Sociology. Her research centers around issues related to women in the workforce, with a focus on work and family, careers and occupations, sex segregation, pay discrimination, and gender equity. She will make her guest appearance on our members-only email loop, the POWER Loop, November 11 – 19.

For even more about Dr. Stone’s book and groundbreaking work, read POWER Loop Founder and Facilitator Debra Levy’s interview with Stone for our member publication, FORUM.

Members! If you’re not already enrolled on the POWER Loop, sign up now to listen in or talk with Dr. Stone.

Non-members! Become a Mothers & More member by joining online right now, and you, too, can join in the discussion!