Are Women Less Driven to Seek Workplace Power if They Wield Power at Home?

When “mom’s the boss”: Control over domestic decision making reduces women’s interest in workplace power

 

Women aged 18–30 expressed less interest in seeking power in the workplace
if they were directed to envision themselves having authority over household
choices such as menus and furniture, rather than to imagine sharing such
decisions equally with a spouse (2.47 versus 2.77, on average, on a 1-to-5 interest scale), according to
a study by Melissa J. Williams of Emory University and Serena Chen of the
University of California, Berkeley. Women seem unaware that they experience
power as a tradeoff — that their enjoyment of household authority undermines
their motivation to seek power in the workplace, the researchers say.