职场女性“野心勃勃”不亚于男性

 　　After decades of glacial change in gender¹ roles, a new generation of working women is proving to be as ambitious as their male counterparts, as measured by their eagerness to move up the career ladder。

　　Based on a unique long-term study of attitudes in the U.S. work force, about two-thirds of both men and women under age 29 say they desire more responsibility on the job. Having children doesn't dent² the ambitions of young women workers; 69% of mothers in this age group say they want to move up on the job, compared with 66% of women without children, says the study of about 3,500 wage, salaried and self-employed workers and small-business owners, released Thursday by the nonprofit Families and Work Institute in New York。

　　That compares with a marked difference among these groups as recently as 2002, when only 48% of young working mothers, compared with 66% of men and 61% of young women without children, said they wanted to climb the career ladder。

　　Young women's motivation for saying they want more responsibility on the job can't be determined³ from the data. One factor is that women are shouldering a larger breadwinning role at home, either by necessity or choice; females in dual-earner couples now provide an average 44% of household income, up from 39% in 1997, the study says. And husbands are taking on more workload⁴ at home; 31% of women say their spouses⁵ do half or most of the child care, up from 21% in 1992. Women also say men are gradually shouldering more of the cooking and cleaning。

　　The study asked questions about work and family roles, attitudes about home life and the workplace, and other worklife issues. While many surveys dabble⁶ in these issues, this study is unusually rigorous, gauging⁷ answers to the same questions periodically since 1977 through a random⁸ telephone survey of a nationally representative sample。

　　In another shift, men of all ages now report work-family conflicts at a higher rate than women, suggesting the sexes are reaching new parity⁹ on this front too. While 34% of both men and women reported work-life conflicts in 1977, that percentage has risen by 11 percentage points to 45% among men, compared with a rise of only five points among women, to 39%。

　　The findings reflect a 'revolutionary change in attitudes and behaviors among both women and men,' says Ellen Galinsky, president of the institute. Generation Y, born after 1980, seems to be approaching equality in gender attitudes, accelerating likely pressure on employers to make career paths more flexible and offer such work-life supports as alternative scheduling。

　　Also, a broad shift in attitudes is lowering old barriers. Prejudice against working mothers is easing; today, 67% of men and 80% of women agree that employed women can be good mothers, the study says. This compares with 49% of men and 71% of women in 1977. People whose own mothers worked when they were growing up were much more likely to agree strongly that working moms can do just as good a job with their children as those who stay at home。

　　Earlier in this decade, a dip in the percentage of young mothers who also held jobs sparked much discussion of why women were 'opting¹⁰ out' of the work force. The 2002 dip in women's career ambition, also reflected in the survey, may have been linked to a sharp increase in overwork and job pressure following the dot-com bust¹¹, based on the institute's previous research on employee attitudes at the time, Ms. Galinsky says。

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 dent   

n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展

参考例句：

• I don't know how it came about but I've got a dent in the rear of my car.我不知道是怎么回事，但我的汽车后部有了一个凹痕。
• That dent is not big enough to be worth hammering out.那个凹陷不大，用不着把它锤平。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 workload   

n.作业量，工作量

参考例句：

• An assistant one day a week would ease my workload.每周有一天配一个助手就会减轻我的工作负担。
• He's always grousing about the workload.他总是抱怨工作量大。

5 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

6 dabble   

v.涉足，浅赏

参考例句：

• They dabble in the stock market.他们少量投资于股市。
• Never dabble with things of which you have no knowledge.绝不要插手你不了解的事物。

7 gauging   

n.测量[试]，测定，计量v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的现在分词 )；估计；计量；划分

参考例句：

• The method is especially attractive for gauging natural streams. 该方法对于测量天然的流注具有特殊的吸引力。 来自辞典例句
• Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. 由于他不爱说话，我过了一些时候才有机会探测他的心灵。 来自辞典例句

8 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

9 parity   

n.平价，等价，比价，对等

参考例句：

• The two currencies have now reached parity.这两种货币现已达到同等价值。
• Women have yet to achieve wage or occupational parity in many fields.女性在很多领域还没能争取到薪金、职位方面的平等。

10 opting   

v.选择，挑选( opt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• What courses are most students opting for? 多数学生选什么课程？ 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Wells doesn't rule out opting out and then re-signing with Houston. 威尔斯没有排除跳出合同再与火箭重签的可能。 来自互联网

11 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。