Predicting medical specialists’ working (long) hours: testing a contemporary career model

Abstract

With the feminization (in numbers) of several professions, changing gender role prescriptions regarding parenthood and an increased attention for work-life balance, career theorists recently addressed the need for a more contemporary career model taking a work–home perspective. In this study, we test such a model by investigating how parenthood, and support for work-life balance and career progress at work affect both Dutch men and women medical specialists’ career motivation and working (over)time. We are also interested in the mediating role of career motivation, and how these relationships differed between men and women. Contrary to what was expected, for women specialists parenthood had no total effect on their working (over)time, but support for work-life balance and high levels of career identity were importantly and positively related to working time, including overtime. For men specialists, however, only career identity showed relevance, and only regarding their contracted hours – not their overtime. Moreover, none of the family or work culture related issues seemed to affect men specialists’ career motivation. We conclude that a contemporary career model with a work–home perspective reveals that some of our role expectations, especially regarding women professionals, seem to be outdated. However, further investigation is needed to explain men specialists’ (long) working hours.

Keywords:

• career motivation
• medical specialists
• working hours
• work-life balance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.