Guest Lecture by Dr. Jaclyn Wong

Guest Lecture by Dr. Jaclyn Wong, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of South Carolina.

"Negotiating Competing Desires: How Young Professionals Make Career and Family Decisions."

Abstract: Scholars debate whether and why gender equality in work and family has stalled. I apply this line of questioning to the case of young professional men and women making early career and family decisions. Analyzing over 130 longitudinal in-depth interviews with both partners of 21 graduate and professional school couples who were negotiating relocation over career opportunities. I find that although all couples made plans to achieve an egalitarian outcome at Time 1, couples decision making diverged at Time 2, and resulted in gender-unequal outcomes at Time 3. I explore how these initial decision trajectories relate to longer-term patterns of work and family at Time 4. Findings point to the necessity of questioning what "gender (in)equality" is.