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This wouldn't occur to my current employers. The bulk of our start-up company is under 50. However, as a single woman, my life would be considerably easier if I had a stay-at-home spouse as all our top executives do.
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Originally Posted by doodlemagic
I really can't see this being an issue. With todays work life balance or lack of it I would actually see employers preferring single people. I hear alot of women on these boards complaining of getting hints employers would prefer if they weren't married or didn't have children. A spouse ties you down in terms of not being as ready to move for promotions and not being able to work insancely long hours.
Maybe for a CEO position if you're in a role where your entertaining other clietns and there wives but I really can't see this being a big issue.
I've been asked point-blank in job interviews about my marital status, or asked after not volunteering such information in answer to the ubiquitous "tell me about yourself" question, so it must matter to some employers.
Traditionally, the thinking has been that a married person (particularly a male) is someone who has demonstrated maturity and accepted responsibility (as opposed to a single person who may be a little immature, less responsible, not as committed, etc.).
In the past, I've worked for entrepreneurial and/or product development employers, and the work hours can be insane. Sometimes, there are stretches where you are working late evenings as well as weekends. If you are single, that might be a plus in the eyes of an employer like that, but for the employee, it's not always easier. If you have a spouse who is either stay-at-home, or has a less-demanding job, they can be a big help to their partner, if they are willing to handle the domestic chores, like laundry, shopping, meal preparation, etc. The single person has to work all of that in during the limited off time they have.
Nobody has asked about my marital status in a while. I don't offer that information either. I'm not ashamed to be divorced, but it is irrelevant to my ability to do the job.
I do think my gender and ethnicity eliminate me from a lot of positions, but I can't prove it.
But they do and can. It's not illegal to ask, only to use the answer in a discriminatory decision.
I am aware it's not illegal, but can appear discrimanatory. I've never had a interviewer ask me about family status, not would I ever ask someone I was interviewing. It's just not a relevant peice of information,
My uncle was put through the wringer back in the late 50s, early 60s, when he finished college and applied for a sales management position with a chemical firm that manufactured fire protection systems for oil companies. He was asked if he was married, if his marriage was stable, very personal questions, to the point where he just about decided to drop out of the running when he got the job.
The job involved world travel at a moment's notice--if there was a fire at an oil refinery in Venezuela, he had to go there. They said they didn't want to put the training into someone who was not going to be able to survive this kind of schedule because of personal concerns.
Probably couldn't get away with that now, but that's how it was then. He became a wealthy man, too, later starting his own fire protection systems company.
I formerly worked in the human resources field before being laid off and not once was marriage ever an issue with hiring or promoting a candidate. In fact, my company prohibited involving an employee's personal life in employment matters.
If anything I would think most companies nowadays would prefer employees to be single.
Admittedly, this was a far greater issue back in the Seventies when I was starting out, but I'd like to know how many of us here have had their employers drop hints that the path to advancement would be easier for married candidates. And I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who had to deal with it in the days when the prejudice was out in the open. Did a hurried or pressured decision on this issue come back to haunt you later?
I left college in 1972, after an unsuccessful attempt at graduate study. My first "real" job was interesting and challenging enough, but my boss (very much a product of the World War II generation) made it clear early on that I could expect little in the way of advancement so long as I remained single, and proved his point by promoting two men whose performance statistics were somewhat lower than mine, but who were engaged. Having only recently emerged from a college-centered community where men outnumbered women by a 2-1 ratio, but settling in a blue-collar town with a much smaller (and picked-over) set of available singles, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma.
Anyone familiar with the culture of the "organization man", and the much-stronger stigma against both cohabitation and homosexuality which prevailed in the Fifties and Sixties can probably add a story or two of their own.
Leave the crappy little town.
There lots of wonderful women in the cities. Women are great. Granted, I already married the best one, but there are still several great candidates for you
Nobody has asked about my marital status in a while. I don't offer that information either. I'm not ashamed to be divorced, but it is irrelevant to my ability to do the job.
I do think my gender and ethnicity eliminate me from a lot of positions, but I can't prove it.
People ask me about my marital status, but it is usually commenting after seeing the ring. It is also usually attractive women my age, so I take it as a compliment that they think my wife found a good catch.
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