The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Coaching: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

GENDER AND HIGH-ACHIEVING WOMEN AT MIDLIFE: CONNIE GERSICK AND KATHY KRAM

Using Levinson’s model of adult development, Gersick and Kram (2002) conducted an exploratory study that involved interviewing a small cohort of high-achieving executive women ages forty-five to fifty-five from the financial services industry. The authors were interested in the patterns of individuals’ lives over the whole life course. They outlined participants’ developmental work in terms of finding a life role (in their twenties), managing career-family trade-offs (in their thirties), and coming into their own (at fifty and beyond). Among the women they interviewed, Gersick and Kram found that by the fifties transition, some women had begun some fundamental changes in ...