Why Women Are Leaving Corporate Roles

The landscape of corporate society is changing. The Internet certainly made an enormous impact on how we do business today. The availability of products and services, as well as the sharing of information, has made corporate life a very different experience than it was even twenty years ago. But despite all the advances and conveniences, women are still choosing to "opt out" of corporate jobs.

Opting out is the catch phrase applied to those people who are choosing to leave the corporate work force in favor of other non-traditional career paths. Soon the label "non- traditional" may be obsolete, as more and more women choose to stay at home to work.

According to a recent survey, there are basically three reasons why women choose to opt out of corporate jobs. Of all those women surveyed, over 70% cited one of the following reasons for leaving:

• The most commonly cited reason was the need or desire to stay at home and raise a family. Women are finding more and more that they are able to start home based businesses to earn an extra income while still being available for their children on a daily basis. While not all women opting out of corporate positions are doing so in order to pursue self-employment, this is a rising trend. The computer and the internet have made it possible for women to commute without leaving home, to market to millions of consumers without a huge advertising budget, and to fulfill their career dreams while maintaining their work and life balance.
• The second reason cited was the desire to pursue non-profit or foundation work. Many women leave the paycheck of a corporate job in order to pursue work in the non-profit sector. Some of these women are receiving paychecks, but others leave their jobs to be of service without pay. This is especially true when the additional pay is not making up for the cost of childcare required while the mother is at work.
• The third most common reason for opting out of a corporate job is that women acquire jobs with the government. This type of work is still traditional in a sense, but does not carry the same kind of prestige or material gains that corporate work often brings.

Of the women who participated in the survey, 62% said they are not considering returning to the corporate work force at all. So this indicates that corporations may continue to see the current trend of a shortage of workers unless they can make the corporate culture and work environment more conducive the needs of working women.

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