But consider this. If you make such judgments where jobs are concerned, you may very well be taking a giant step backward in your search for success.
If you're a single man, you're one of approximately 24.4 million single males in America. If you're an unmarried woman, there are almost 34 million women in this country with the same marital status.
Two decades ago the number of people who never married made up about 16.2 percent of the adult population. Now that figure is placed at above 22 percent.
Similarly, only 3.2 percent of the adult population was divorced in 1970. That number is now well over15 percent. (This includes all adults; as we know, the divorce rate for recent marriages is much higher.)
One of the major hallmarks of this changing work is represented by the above figures. As sexual mores and patterns of male-female living have evolved over the past forty years, business has had to change, too, in the way views, people and their private lives have evolved. This hasn't been easy for many managers, who were brought up in an era which the roles of men and women were more clearly defined. It wasn't long ago that a married man stood a better chance of being hired than an unmarried man, even though the unmarried man's credentials might have been equal or even better. That's no longer true in most cases. As more and more new managers come out of the ranks of those who've lived their lives differently in this new age, their attitudes naturally will influence the way a person's marital status is perceived. That probably leaves some old-line managers basing many of their hiring decisions on such prejudices.
Married men were always perceived as bringing more stability to a company. They were thought to be less likely to carouse at night, and because they had significant family demands made upon them-especially financial-more likely to work harder and take their jobs more seriously. That preconditioned notion never seemed to apply to women, probably because women were not viewed as primary wage earners, but working only to supplement the family income.
The women's movement changed all that, and the uncertain economic situation within our society today has made it absolutely necessary for millions of women to seek employment.
More important-and this is what an increasing number of male managers seem to be grasping-women are now seeking the same fulfillment from a successful career that men have always sought. Fortunately, they have been able to achieve this to an impressive extent considering how far they have had to come in a short period of time.
The labor department projects that twelve years from now more than 80 percent of new employees-not only new entrants into the work force-will be protected minorities and women. Not only does this translate into a large pool of new people competing for the job you're looking after, it will more drastically change the atmosphere of every company.
So what does this mean? It means that the white married man will have more competition from non-whites, singles, the divorced, and, primarily, women. Men will have more competition for better jobs, and those who compete best will be those men who are constantly on the dearth to improve options within their company, or with another.
It means that there will be more people-men and women, whites and nonwhites-all vying for better jobs. Fortunately, the growth of our nation, the emergence of new technologies, and the overall strength of the economy will create an increasing number of better jobs as the world becomes just a little bit less crazy.
