Work Orientations and Women's Work: A Critique of Hakim's Theory of the Heterogeneity of Women

This paper is a critique of Hakim's theory of the gendered character of work with its key idea of the ‘heterogeneity of women’ centring on the distinction between those who are ‘family oriented’ and those who are ‘career oriented’. Such patterns of work commitment are claimed to be developed by early adulthood and to steer women in one direction or the other. Our critique is based on interviews with two groups of young adult women generating rich data on their attitudes to employment, families and the relationship between the two. The first group (‘single workers’) when first interviewed were single, childless and employed full‐time. The second (‘early mothers’) were partnered mothers with at most part‐time employment. The substance of the critique is threefold: 1.The single workers could not be clearly separated by ‘career’ or ‘family’ orientation. They wanted both, which then left them in Hakim's residual category as ‘drifters’, a wholly inappropriate characterization. 2.The early mothers were certainly homemakers but our data doubted that this was by choice and suggested that many were becoming more career oriented. 3.Longitudinal data from the single workers show the importance of analysing ‘orientation’ or other aspects of agency in the context of social structure rather than as a prime mover in itself.