Deciding to work less in a high-level profession: negotiating strategies and consequences of reduced-hours careers in medicine

Abstract

Based on forty interviews with physicians who chose to work a reduced-hours career track, this paper explores the perceived consequences of this career track on career progression and satisfaction. Our study suggests that for this population, a reduced-hours career path is a strategy developed primarily on the individual physician's initiative, informally negotiated with the organization, and dependent upon factors such as relationships with supervisors and peers. The physicians believed that the non-standard and informal ways in which these alternative career paths were created lead to a flexible working situation. However, they also acknowledged that reduced-hours careers also resulted in less career mobility. In contrast to other research on the relationship between lack of standardized, formal workplace policies and career stigmatization, these physicians did not describe a relationship between these two factors. Instead, participation in tasks and activities defined as normative to the profession was a key factor affecting career mobility.

Citation

Lundgren, L., Ferguson, F. and Fleischer-Cooperman, J. (2001), "Deciding to work less in a high-level profession: negotiating strategies and consequences of reduced-hours careers in medicine", Vallas, S. (Ed.) The Transformation of Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 263-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-2833(01)80029-7