Impact of Marital Status on Women Employee Career Development: A Study based on Graduate Employees in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The total number of women in administrative and managerial positions has increased over the years; however, the proportion of women moving to top leadership positions still remains low Prior research has shown that job level, age, marital status, highest education qualification, and family-related barriers have a significant relationship with women career development Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the nexus between marital status and career development and how this relationship varies across family support that women employees received, and the study is mainly focusing on graduate employees in Sri Lanka. This study is carried out as quantitative explanatory research work. Further, the sample is selected using the simple random sampling technique. This is cross-sectional, descriptive research, and a standard questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 605 executive-level graduate women employees. To test the hypothesis, the researcher used simple linear regression with the aid of SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The results of the study show that there is a significant positive impact of marital status on women employees’ career development. The results of moderation analysis showed that family support moderates the association between marital status and career development, where the relationship is stronger for the women who received high family support from their families. The main takeover of this study is this study contributes to the existing literature, in particular women career development. Moreover, research provides implications for the decision-makers of the state sector in Sri Lanka.