Kinesiology 442
Melissa Littlefield
Abstract
In this research paper we discuss the findings of an ethnographic project about the
views of college female students on marriage after undergrad. The participants used for
our survey data collection were 16 females in the Applied Health Science College (AHS)
and 16 females in the Liberal Arts and Science College (LAS). Additionally four other
females were interviewed. We initially hypothesized that the average age of wanting to
get married would be during their late twenties for the participants in the Applied Health
Science College (AHS) and earlier for the participants in the Liberal Arts and Science
College (LAS). We also hypothesized that someone pursuing a career in the medical field
would have different views on marriage than someone who was pursuing a different
career path. However, we found that differences almost ceased to exist within the females
regardless of college or career path. When the women who participated in the survey
were asked at what age they saw themselves getting married the most common response
was 26 years old, the college and career choice they had made seemed to have no effect
on their response. The majority of the women surveyed and interviewed were pursuing
further education and had no intention in starting families until after they had established
their careers. Independence and financial stability were the two big perpetuating factors
for career choice. We also found that having a working mother growing up did not really
have an effect on their choices instead it is based more on personal drive and ambition
Analysis
What does marriage mean in 2011? Is it really just a piece of paper? The idea of
marriage itself is extremely complicated and depending on whom you ask one can hear
numerous positive things or the diametric opposite. The age of getting married is
increasing among women. Women are now pursing higher education, having better
paying careers, and some are choosing to become single mothers. The divorce rate has
gradually risen, a scary thought seeing as it is human nature to not want to end up alone.
Women are without a doubt more independent in this day and age. Still, although young
women are willing to delay starting a family, they remain committed to having one.
Women college students evaluate the combination of wife, mother, and career as the most
attractive role option (Bridges, 1987).
After hearing from many older adults “you are close to graduation and this is
when the wedding invitations start pouring in” it made us think could that possibly be
correct? To be more specific how do female students feel about marriage after undergrad
is a topic we found ourselves asking many questions about. It has not only intrigued us to
begin learning more about this trend in our society, it has also brought up many more
questions we never even knew we had. Do any of us even remember when women
wanted more than to be married; they actually wanted to be wives? As two female
Kinesiology students pursuing careers requiring further schooling our research started by
asking how is marriage viewed among our fellow female peers in two different colleges,
The Applied Health Science College and Liberal Arts and Science College respectively.
This idea brought up further questions within our research. Are women still getting
married in their early twenties right after undergrad? Or are they choosing an alternative
route? Many of our peers would say marriage is outdated and nowhere in their near future
but why? Is getting married right after college a hindrance on one’s career plans? More
specifically does the major you choose have an influence on your likelihood of getting
married earlier? For example does a woman who is majoring in English have different
views on marriage than someone who chooses to be Pre-Med? Or perhaps women in
general nowadays put their careers first and forming families later.
We started by questioning if these two colleges were going to show drastic
differences in the way females feel about marriage after college. At the beginning of our
research we hypothesized that the average age of wanting to get married would be during
their late twenties for the participants in the Applied Health Science College (AHS) and
earlier for the participants in the Liberal Arts and Science College (LAS). We
hypothesized that someone pursuing a career in the medical field would have different
views on marriage than someone who was pursuing a career in a different field. However,
after collecting the data we have come to the conclusion that the differences are not all
that immense when it comes to comparing female students in LAS verse AHS. The data
we collected showed us more similarities than differences among the participants in both
colleges. This has led us to look mote at the reasons why marriage is being put off among
our peers.
Our data collection started by interviewing four female students pursuing different
careers after undergrad, two within the health field and two in different fields. We also
had a total of 32 female college students fill out an online survey. Exactly half of the
participants who filled out the survey were in the Applied Health Science College and the
other half were in the Liberal Arts and Science College. All 32 participants in the sample
were either of junior or senior standing. Our survey data showed that when asked what
their plans post-undergrad were 59% of the participants responded graduate school, 25%
responded job and 16% responded other, namely medical school. Young women are
attending graduate and professional schools in record numbers in preparation for careers
of all types (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). Career was shown to be
extremely more important than starting a family in this sample.
Interestingly what we have found is that most female students are mostly
concerned with their careers before beginning to think about marriage and families.
Based on the four interviews that were conducted, we were able to get detailed
explanations of why each of these women is more concerned with jobs than families.
Mainly, what we found was that their choices on becoming women in the work force
were due more to the idea of being independent followed by financial stability. Lindsay,
one of the interview subjects, stated in her interview, “Well it is important to have a
career and not depend on your boyfriend/girlfriend because this way you develop your
own identity and don’t have to completely depend on another person.” This seemed to be
a reoccurring theme in the interview altogether. She wanted to be comfortable in her
lifestyle as an adult, but mostly wanted to find something for herself that she can rely on,
as opposed to an in her life, which may not be so reliable based on the divorce rate today.
When asked the same question, Sara, another interview subject, touched on how
women’s roles have changed. She stated “it is more odd now for a woman to stay home
and think oh I need to take care of the children. Instead now it’s like I need to go and
make my own money and be independent and still be able to take care of my kids.”
Regardless of being a woman or man in her family Sara mentioned “you have to think
about money and success,” showing again the theme of being independent and
minimizing as much as possible the dependence on anyone else.
The information we gathered from the interviews has not only led us to conclude
that to most women having a career signifies independence, but that it is a characteristic
for which women are striving for more and more each day. However, based on the 32
surveys that were filled out, when participants were asked if they saw themselves getting
married after undergrad within the first five years 62% said yes, which was surprising.
We were expecting to see a lower percentage of women saying they saw themselves in a
marriage within five years of completing undergrad. Interestingly enough when the same
participants were asked if they saw themselves starting a family in those same five years
84% said no and 16% said yes. An astounding 94% of these women said that a career is
more important to them right now than a family. When asked to rank the importance of
marriage on a scale of 1 to 10 the most common answer was an 8. So although the
majority of the participants saw themselves in a marriage in the next few years starting a
family is seen later in life. Our interview subjects expressed similar thoughts and views
about marriage because even though they saw themselves eventually getting married
children were not necessarily involved. Families are being put on hold so that their
careers can thrive.
To account for possible external variables in our research we asked our four
interview subjects many personal questions about the upbringing of their childhood.
With this in mind we were trying to determine whether or not working mothers had any
influence on the choices our subjects have made in regards to their career choices and
paths. Within the 32 surveys completed, 72% of them responded with having a working
mother growing up. We originally expected the number to be about the same for students
who intended on being working mothers themselves, however, our data yet again,
suggested otherwise. We had 88% of our study say that they intend on being a career
oriented woman while having a family. Our data in both the surveys and interviews
suggest that whether or not our peers grew up with a working mother had not been the
determining factor for their choice in being working mothers. With more women taking
their careers seriously before starting families, it is foreseeable that most of these women
will continue to work even after starting a family. There were a few of our survey
subjects who predicted being a stay at home mother, and these same subjects were also in
the percentage of women who predicted being married in the next 5 years.
Interestingly, for three out of the four girls we interviewed salary was definitely
an important factor when choosing a career. With the way our economy is going the
concern of having a good stable job is high among college students and soon to be
college graduates. So it was not a surprise to see that the importance of salary was a
reoccurring theme in our data. When asked if salary played a role in selecting her major
and career path without hesitation Sara responded yes, she also stated she wants to be
able to “live comfortably or a little bit more than comfortably.” In her interview, Lindsay,
stated “salary is definitely something that helped determine my career path…I would not
pick a profession that I did not think would provide a comfortable lifestyle for myself.”
Another one of our interviewees answered that salary did play a role when picking her
major but more than anything she wants “to do something that I like to do, and I know
that with my major there are many options of high paying jobs out there.” When one has
a stable income from a job he or she enjoys the idea of starting a family is more
conceivable. Economic necessity, as well as commitment to career, contributes to
continuation of employment after marriage and motherhood, as women’s contribution to
the family income has become essential since the 1980s (White & Rogers, 2000).
According to the article High-Powered Careers and Marriage: Can Women Have
It All by Sylvain Dessy and Habiba Djebbari, women have always been concerned with
their biological clock ticking to an end at the young age of 35, while men have no such
thing, they can easily start families later in life. This plays a part in being responsible for
the imbalance in the work force, due to women being more concerned with starting
families over worrying about a career. Dessy and Djebbari argue imbalances that occur in
the workforce between men and women also have tendencies to occur at home as well,
especially when it comes to raising a family. However, as more women start pursuing
their careers with as much effort and drive as young men, the imbalances between men
and women equal out in the work force, as do the imbalances at home. This has become a
recent phenomenon that has led to the following of young adjacent cohorts.
In final analysis of our research our findings have shown us there are many
women out there who are more focused on more important personal ambitions before
setting the time aside to start a family. Significantly, we found that most of females who
filled participated in our research had the similar views on marriage and reasons as to
why they want to put it off. Women are becoming more independent in the work force,
and much of this is due to wanting to be able to support oneself without the need to
depend on anyone else. Salary plays a big part in career choice and women no longer
settle for jobs that are stereotyped as “women jobs.” As women in their twenties today
are pushing back marriage, it makes staying single for longer become more appealing to
younger women. It is a way to show the working world that women are just as capable of
men in thriving to success. Despite our data proving our hypothesis wrong, it led us to
farther more interesting trends among women. It is important to note that the values we
build and hegemonic ideas we create will affect many more generations to come. After
all the values of our culture are written on our bodies and are too deep to erase.
With more research, we would like to know, not the percentage of women
wanting to wait to start a family, but the percentage of what exactly women are waiting
for. Is it to become successful in their careers? Is it to be independent of a man? Or, is it
to just live out their young single lives for as long as they can? There are a few variables
that can be added or taken out to narrow down our future findings and minimize outliers.
The sample size of interview subjects would be larger because answers are given more
thought and with a lot more detail. It is hard to give marriage one meaning. It can be
defined differently by every person and alludes to why marriage is not something static
but instead dynamic.
References
Bridges, J. S. (1987). College females’ perceptions of adult roles and occupational fields
for women. Sex Roles, 16, 591–604.
Dessy, S., Djebbari. H. (2010). High-Powered Careers and Marriage: Can Women Have
It All?. The B.B. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10(1).
Hoffnung, M. (2004). Wanting It All: Career, Marriage, and Motherhood During
College-Educated Women’s 20s. Sex Roles, 50, 711-723.
White, L., & Rogers, S. J. (2000). Economic circumstances and family outcomes: A
review of the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1035–1051.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2000). Statistical abstract of the United States: 2000.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Lucille (personal communication, November, 5, 2011)
Lindsay (personal communication, November, 5, 2011)
Sloane (personal communication, November, 12, 2011)
Sara (personal communication, November, 12, 2011)