DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN’S CAREER PATTERN IN RELATION OF EMPLOYMENT

The development of women's career is more complicated than that of men's, as various internal and external barriers exist, for instance, the family and related duties, the role in life, employment, the surrounding environment, traditions and stereotypes that both facilitate and limit the choice of a career by women and their career growth. To understand the specifics of women's professional career, scientists seek to explain the relations of employment and careers. A career is defined as a position of employment, a sequence of roles, activities and experiences that combines the job, the career and the profession as well as the situation of being unemployed. It means that a career may develop not only upwards, but during its course women may end up in various situations and have various statuses of employment. Therefore, employment is associated with a professional career through the change of the status of employment. The research includes the research results on women's career patterns. The research aim is to examine the ways of women's career pattern. To achieve the aim, a survey of women was conducted. In the survey, the ways of women's career pattern in Latvia were identified based on seven ways of women's career pattern, as defined by D. Super's Theory of Career Development. The paper concludes that the distribution of the given of women's careers patterns are as follows: 38.5 % are parallel careers, 25.6 % interrupted careers, 15.4 % stable careers, 12.8 % traditional careers, 5.1 % instable careers and 2.6 % are stable housekeeper careers. The research results will contribute to the understanding of the ways of women's career pattern.