Medical women in the middle: family or career? Periods not working and part-time work amongst women doctors who qualified in 1974 and 1977.

This paper is based on work which has been in progress for the past 13 years. Longitudinal data are presented on doctors who graduated from United Kingdom schools in 1974 and 1977 who reported periods of unemployment of at least three months' duration each, or who have worked part-time. The results reveal how their patterns of non-employment and part-time work have changed over the years. As expected, women were more likely to have been unemployed or to have worked part-time and these differences were strongly linked to marriage and child-bearing. Finally, some of the implications for the career prospects of women doctors are discussed.