Abstract
The 40 women managers who work in Nagoya city and its vicinity were interviewed.The interviewee's mean age was 45.2 years, and the mean year with the companies was 19.4 years.
In this interview each female manager was asked about 1) career environment, 2) career consciousness, and 3) career stress. In addtion to stress factors identified by past studies based on male subjects, “female discrimination” and “compatibility with work and family” were found as two main stressors unique to the female managers.
Almost all respondents in this study felt stress attributable to discriminatory biases in thier work place, and difficulty of compatibility with work and family. Nonetheless, they seemed to work hard for converting these stressors into a driving force, which enabled them to have a present success. In other words, they were success women, whom we may call superwomen. However, we must concern for many women who could not make such a success in spite of their hope for the progress, faced with the stressful organizational environment in which most of the women were put to work.
