Career Challenges faced by Women

Counseling: Career Challenges Women Face

Women have always been struggling either to find an appropriate job opportunity matching their qualifications or an equal-pay job (person-job fit). This paper aims at devising a counselling intervention for women who face challenges in their careers. The explanation of interventional approaches to address the particular problem would be done by investigating the issue in-depth and looking for pertinent information for catering to it in counselling terms. 

Description of Problem

The pre-defined gender roles by our society for men and women both have discriminated against women from work in various ways. It is believed that men are the only ones who are meant to earn for their families, which is true, however, there is no prohibition of women from taking the same responsibility, especially when they face financial difficulties. Finding a balance between their work and family lives remains a challenge and thus, are generally discriminated against based on their gender. 

Organizational efficiency depends highly on employers’ ability to work productively, either for males or females. Employment discrimination, reaching work on time, accessibility of workplace that is far away, low pay scale, racial discrimination, difficulties at workplace arising from colleagues, workplace harassment towards females, work stress, job satisfaction due to pressures of maintaining work-life balance, etc. are some of the major career challenges that women face (Podder & Divakaran, 2020). A supportive work environment could possibly help women come over these challenges, which despite great modernism and globalization, has not been possible as yet. 

Current Statistics

Covid-19 has worsened the situation since job loss has been massive during this time where one out of four women faced termination due to lack of childcare; the rate was double the rate of men (Bateman & Ross, 2020). The senior-level positions are not welcoming enough for females, particularly for colored women. McKinsey reports reveal that total women (both White and colored) were 47% of the workforce in 2017, which slightly increased to 48% by 2022. However, only a 1% increment in senior representation for females in five years’ time is saddening. 

Another upsetting fact was that 47% of the women who do not work how they want to told in a survey that they have equal opportunity while 64% worked what they wanted but were still planning to leave next year (Krivkovich et al., 2022). 30% of the women felt burned out, even if they worked on their own terms while 21% felt the same situation when not working how they wanted to. Remote working has been a high preference after Covid-19 and companies are now thinking of strategies to retain and better serve their female employees for improved organizational culture and environment. 

Symptoms of the Problem

Gender differences and related factors such as maintaining work-family balance due to gender roles seem to be the antecedent of the issue under discussion here. The reason for saying so is that gender bias in terms of low-pay scale, either in low, middle or high hierarchical positions of the company is evident in multinational companies as well. Despite globalization and increased emphasis on equal employment opportunities, women still remain under-represented in the workforce in some of the most prominent and progressive countries of the world. A developed country like Belgium which is a high-income economy faces the same issues, particularly in the form of glass ceiling when a qualified female is not granted her due position based on gender discrimination. This affects her self-esteem, job satisfaction, lower morale, emotional and psychological well-being, lower perceptions of career success and professional growth, work engagement, job strain and in serious cases, intention to quit (Babic & Hansez, 2021; Lee & Eissenstat, 2018). These situations could be taken as the symptoms when counselling interventions could step in to help such females so that the major indicators of well-being could be taken as a priority by the counsellors. 

Apart from that, challenges are also seen in choosing the career initially. For example, adolescent girls attempting to make a career choice for themselves tend to seek help in online groups, particularly from other females (Hechtlinger & Gati, 2019). It is where counselling guidance could assist them in making the right direction for their future. Their dysfunctional beliefs regarding fate or gender could be reduced with group intervention where race and age groups could prove effective. Talking about age, career guidance for older women who become victims of early retirement, ageing, and depleting skills as compared to fresh youth employees could be valuable to save them from social exclusion and deteriorating quality of life (QoL) through carefully devised counselling interventions (Bimrose et al., 2013). 

Causes of the Problem

Women’s mid-life time is considered an important developmental stage of their life since accepting unpredictable tasks of life and developing the resilience to cope with them is evident at this stage the most (Maree & Nortje, 2022). Mid-career or midlife phase is the time when most women face happiness as well as equal hardships. It is their transformation process from one phase to another, for example from being a single girl to a married woman and becoming a mother soon after marriage. Career development at this stage could be cumbersome as a lack of decision-making capabilities based on the intention to balance work and family could be difficult (Maree & Nortje, 2022). It causes anxiety and stress to look after their kids and work simultaneously. The midlife transitions for women and their career development cause friction which is not deemed favourable for their social identity and realities (Maree & Nortje, 2022). The sense of experience and knowledge of human relationships need to be nurtured in a way that redefines her identity in line with the fulfilment of her personal needs and professional ambitions. 

Culture also poses a unique effect on gender differences in career choices that later pose challenges in women's career life. For example, cultural dimensions like power distance, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance define vocational interests as women might be more interested to pursue their careers for achieving financial security (Tao et al., 2022). The desire to achieve higher status, better social impact and greater conflicts to manage work-family balance would be noticed. In certain cultures, for example, in the US, individualism is high and uncertainty avoidance for females is low, showing the moderated impact of gender differences in vocational interest for prestige and financial safety (Tao et al., 2022). Vocational counsellors could benefit from this notion while attending to such female clients who face pertinent career challenges. 

Treatment of the Problem

To address the above-mentioned symptoms of women who either face challenges when entering a career and making decisions about career choices or those who are already pursuing their careers but face challenges at work, problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies could be effective. Research has indicated that women use more of these two emotional supports when they are at high risk of job insecurity due to gender discrimination as they anticipate job loss when they are under high stress (Menendez-Espina et al., 2019). Job satisfaction is low and the need for seeking emotional and social support in such stressful times is high. 

Individual, as well as social or group intervention, might be helpful for females when they face such issues for their higher emotional well-being. An employee cannot be individually blamed for such emotions as job loss, job strain, job dissatisfaction, less engagement etc. when they are not satisfied with their work culture. Since a high emphasis has been found in evidence that women seek social support when under stress, community-based intervention, which could be based on a community of females experiencing the cited symptoms could be invited for counselling intervention. Men tend to use more problem-based strategies for coping with job stress while women desire emotional support (Menendez-Espina et al., 2019). Seeing their peers facing the same issues at work would naturally give them the strength that they are not alone. Counsellors could focus on more emotional, informational, typical antecedents at the workplace that trigger women for increasing symptoms and perceived stress for devising clinical strategies for better mental health and self-coping (Menendez-Espina et al., 2019). 

Career choice is found effective for young females who want to enter new careers for the first time, which is deduced, could be effective for older women, who were previously mentioned to be facing problems like early retirement and social exclusion in old age etc. The career choice intervention program is based on the Saxion Orientation Project of Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Deventer, Netherlands (Kunnen, 2014). It is a four-month program designed for guiding young students of universities for better explorations and decision-making skills (Kunnen, 2014). The program not only inculcates student support for letting them decide what career they want to pursue but also provides help in self-exploration so that they know who they are, who they actually want to be and how they can achieve their goals for that aim (Kunnen, 2014). The program's effectiveness has been proved by previous studies that stated the high job commitment of students in their new jobs and better ability to make new career choices in future (Kunnen, 2014). Additionally, counselling interventions for training women about taking risks, asking for raises, staying direct when inquiring about opportunities, making a meaningful discussion about starting salary and knowing about the professional growth and training offers that companies provide to females would be a valuable turning point in addressing career challenges. 

Women of colour facing mistreatment at workplaces is another conspicuous area of concern for counsellors. Psychological disturbances and high levels of stress are found among these women due to gender as well as racial discrimination (Burns, 2022). Firstly, professional counsellors need to educate them that workplace mistreatment is not personal and that they should not self-blame or self-criticize for it (Burns, 2022). Becoming mistreatment would only add to their aggression and negative internal unbalances. Severe symptoms sometimes become evident in the form of high absenteeism, social withdrawal, staying excessively silent etc. which show a high need for reporting mistreatment at work, for which women need to be counselled too (Burns, 2022). Counsellors must identify all forms of mistreatment at work such as intimidation, harassment, verbal abuse, gender-based firing, inadequate opportunities for promotion where there are high chances (perceived glass ceiling) etc. (Burns, 2022). Evidence in counselling has revealed that assertive-empathic responses are the most effective in confronting the perpetrator by the victims such as by saying “I understand your point of view but I felt a little upset when…” (Burns, 2022). Moreover, social support at work, finding colleagues, especially colored women who face the same issues, or even social support online community groups would be a suitable way of seeking emotional support- by far the most talked-about coping strategy in career counselling (Burns, 2022; Khairina & Triastuti, 2019). Confidence and trust rebuilding takes place with such support for regaining social inclusion. 

Counsellors could also work with organizations where workplace misstatement is highly apparent. For this purpose, an initial survey could be conducted, particularly to gauge the current females’ opinions about their workspace and whether they find it supportive enough. Based on the results, counsellors could intervene to assist organizations to change their power dynamics, provide intense support for minority women and make organizational culture more inclusive (Tabassum & Nayak, 2021). Counsellors can arrange meetings on a one-on-one basis with women or in groups. Employers could be trained by counsellors to formulate workplace training and offer career advancement opportunities to women (Tabassum & Nayak, 2021). This mindset is explained clearly by social role theory that advocates men and women acting in pre-determined gender roles that have become stereotypes for society, and are expected to behave in their specific ways (Tabassum & Nayak, 2021). Their personal relationship and those at work are established by these roles, especially when women are seeking high managerial places. Their mind-bending towards gender stereotyping is necessary since they believe that females naturally manifest certain standards of femininity that they tend to change when they are in the workplace, or at higher managerial positions (Tabassum & Nayak, 2021). Such attitudes and female behaviours are perceived as a gender role violation by male supervisors or colleagues, leading them to keep women away from workplace equality. 

On an individual basis, social identity theory could be used as a foundation for counselling intervention. Even if women are counselled in groups, the social identification-building interventions are proven to be effective on psychological health, specifically for addressing workplace stress, social relationship development at workplaces and better job satisfaction, leading to a better quality of life (QoL) (Steffens et al., 2019). An example could be taken from Meuret and colleagues’ formulated intervention in 2016 where group psychotherapy was used for enhancing the social identity of patients suffering from social anxiety disorder (Steffens et al., 2019). The implication of this example here for women could be beneficial so that the contrasts that women face due to gender bias at work could be managed before they transform into stress, anxiety or intention to leave. 

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