Hakim's Preference Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Hakim's Preference Theory - Essay Example She describes women into three groups of which only a minority is focused on having a professional career. She estimates that this minority stands somewhere between a tenth to the third of all the women in the workforce. A similar number of women are focused on their families and give preference to their children and their homes over their work (Jenkins, 2004). The remaining majority which could be anywhere from half the women in the workforce to 80% of women in the workforce try to adapt their work to their lives outside the office or they may try to work around their lives with their families. By splitting women into these three groups, Hakim also pointed out predictors for their employment patterns and they're marital as well as fertility rates. The results of the study she conducted to test her theory supported her ideas and she showed that the majority of women who focused on their work were employed on a full-time basis, had not married and had low rates in terms of fertility (Arndt, 2003). On the other hand, her research also showed that women who were focused on their homes and their families were more likely to be married with more than twice the number of children as compared to women who focused on their work. The numbers for fertility and marriage rates of women who adapted their professional careers to their family situation remained in the middle of work centered and family-centered women. With these ideas, Hakim dismisses years of feminist thought as myths (Jenkins, 2004). This has become the primary reason why Hakim’s Preference Theory has attracted so much attention because it is quite provocative.