Career Motivation In African American Women

Since the 1970’s the numbers of women in the workforce have increased exponentially. According to current population reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Caucasian women ages 16 and older comprised 53.3 percent of the Caucasian civilian labor workforce surveyed in 2013. In the same respect, African American women comprised 52 percent of the African American workforce, Latino women 50.4 percent of the Latino workforce, and Asian women 54.3 percent of the Asian workforce surveyed (Appendix A). Based on these figures it is clear that women make up a significant portion of the American workforce. The Current Population Survey by the Bureau of Labor statistics in 2011 predicted that between 2008 and 2018 the women civilian labor force …show more content…
London defined career motivation being a multi-dimensional construct composed of the individual’s characteristics, related career decisions and behaviors that reflect the person’s career identity, perception of factors affecting his/her career and the resilience in the event of unfavorable career conditions. Career motivation is internal to the individual and is dependent upon the individual’s characteristics, environmental influences and is reflected in the individual’s actions and behaviors (London, 1983). He suggested that individual characteristics were further broken down into the personality variables, needs, and interests that were potentially important to a person’s career. These compose the dimensions of career motivation. Career identity refers to the extent of how central one’s career is to one’s overall sense of self or identity. Career insight refers to the extent the individual has realistic perceptions about him/herself and the organization and is able to relate these views to career goals. Career resilience refers to an individual’s resistance to career disruptions in unfavorable conditions. This model proposed by London also shows that prospective and retrospective rationality processes help us understand how individual characteristics, situational conditions, and their interactions affect behaviors (London & Noe, 1997). Prospective rationality processes argue that …show more content…
The participants were restricted to students attending the researcher’s school (San Francisco State University), friends and relatives accessible to the researcher via social media avenues, and business professionals contacted from the researcher’s personal networks. Furthermore, participants were also selected because they meet the following criteria: were at least 18 years of age, identified as being members of the female gender, and were employed in a full-time capacity (averaging 32 hours of work per week). These individuals were recruited from San Francisco State University psychology courses. Additionally, the researcher recruited through posting on publicly accessible social media/internet websites such as personal facebook.com and instagram.com accounts. Participants who took the survey were encouraged to share the survey to their colleagues, friends, and relatives at their