Women in Higher Education Institutions: Challenges Faced by Women in HEI and Emerging Opportunities

Career and Mid-Career Crisis

Mid-career is the stage where almost every professional comes across either new and tremendous opportunities or declination of their career graph. There are various factors affecting this stage. Due to ambiguity in desired goals or inevitable incidents are also contributing during this stage.

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  Career: Career, as defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary, ‘course or progress through life or history; a way of making a livelihood or advancing oneself’ (Super and Hall, 1978) The word ‘career’ most of the time is referred to by many as occupation, job, and position (Super and Hall, 1978) but typically career and occupation are interchangeably being used.

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  Mid-career crisis: This is an inevitable phenomenon in the life of most professionals (Schwandt, 2015). The explanations and research are not able to satisfy that why most of the questions are unanswered which are related to the mid-career crisis. The significance phases emerge right from the beginning of the career upto the retirement (Super and Hall, 1978; Levinson, 1978). As per the ages the changes in the performance are noticed. The age group close to the 40, this is a crucial phase of career, as per the Super and Hall. Actual career-crisis comes across during or later of the middle age of the career. The upskilling and adoption of advanced technology as the organization takes quantum leaf, this becomes difficult for old employees and employers too (Fossum et al., 1986).

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