Opting Back In: The Influence of Time at Home on Professional Women's Career Redirection after Opting Out

Limited research on professional women's labour force re‐entry after a career break (so‐called ‘opting out’) finds that women redirect away from former careers. Little is known about why this occurs. Our study, based on in‐depth interviews with 54 at‐home mothers, extends prior research to address this question. We find that among women who intended to return to work (who constitute the majority), most planned to pursue alternative careers, typically in traditionally female‐dominated professions or were uncertain about their career direction; few planned to return to their former employers. The reasons for this redirection were women's negative experiences in family inflexible occupations, skill depreciation and perceived age discrimination. Equally or more important, however, was their adaptation to new constraints and opportunities at home (such as increased involvement in mothering and community work), which engendered an aspirational shift towards new, care‐oriented professions that were lower paid and had lower status. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.