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ABSTRACT
This paper describes how anticipated age discrimination in the form of disparate treatment induces behavior that in effect constitutes gender discrimination. Potential employers often exhibit a common pattern of behavior that acts to discriminate against older workers entering a specific workplace. Women, at a decision-making point early in their lives, are aware of this pattern of discrimination. They perceive that it is important for them to establish their careers before they have a family because it will be more difficult for them to enter the work force at a later age and excel at their careers. This anticipated age discrimination disparately impacts women, resulting in gender discrimination.
Discrimination is a form of unequal treatment that:
Involves decisions that directly affect the employment status of individuals or the terms and conditions of their employment--those that involve personnel decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion, pay, advancement opportunities, and the like; and,
Results from prejudice or some other morally unjustified attitude against members of the group to which an individual belongs.
--(Boatright, 1997: 182-3)
In 1978, Congress passed the Age Discrimination Act to extend the list of protected classes (i.e., race, color, religion, sex, and national origin) enunciated in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include age. Specifically, age discrimination pertains only to (prospective) employees over the age of forty; a firm cannot be held liable for discriminating, because of age, against persons under forty (Greenberg and Pasternack, 1998). By comparison, gender and other forms of discrimination are ageless.
Since this landmark legislation, thousands of cases alleging age and/or gender discrimination have been brought to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (U.S. EEOC, 1999). Equally daunting has been the number of studies investigating age and/or gender discrimination (e.g., Lobel and St. Clair, 1992; Barnum, Liden, and DiTomaso, 1995; Kolpin and Singell, Jr., 1996; Johnson and Neumark, 1997; for a comprehensive review, see Perry, 1997). However, no scholarly work has specifically proposed that age discrimination gives birth to gender discrimination. The central thesis of this paper is that a specific incidence of age discrimination--a preference for younger candidates to fill entry-level professional positions--detailed below, is inherently gender discriminatory.

DISPARATE TREATMENT AND DISPARATE IMPACT
Discrimination can take the form of disparate treatment or disparate impact (Greenberg, 1999; Boatright, 1997: 185). Disparate treatment occurs when an employer treats an individual differently because of her or his age, race, sex, etc. Disparate impact involves company policy that acts to exclude certain individuals from a job or promotions. A company does not intentionally design the policy to exclude these individuals; however, it is the unfortunate result.
A landmark case in discrimination law illustrates the difference between disparate treatment and disparate impact (detailed in Boatright, 1997: 185-186). Before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Duke Power openly discriminated against blacks. After its passage, the company revised its hiring and promotion policies so they would, ostensibly, be colorblind. The new policies required that all applicants have a high school diploma and pass two standardized tests. Thirteen black employees at the Dan River plant in North Carolina sued Duke Power, contending that these education and testing requirements were discriminatory for two reasons. First, according to 1960 U.S. Census results, 34 percent of white males and only 12 percent of black males in North Carolina had graduated from high school. Hence, the requirement of a high school diploma served to exclude black males from employment in a higher proportion than it did white males. Second, the company had set the passing scores for the two standardized tests at the national median of high school graduates, with the result that 58 percent of whites taking the test passed compared to only 6 percent of blacks. As such, even though the company did not do so intentionally, the revised policies disparately (negatively) impacted blacks applying for employment.
In this paper, I argue that age discrimination of employees under the age of 40 entering male-dominated professions (e.g., medicine, law, academia), although not illegal and most probably not intentional, disparately (negatively) impacts women, and thus is inherently gender discriminatory. I focus on the professions because these fields require greater commitments to education and training and often involve long probationary periods before an individual attains job security (e.g., partnership or tenure). I focus on maledominated professions in particular because research has shown that "being in the minority increases a woman's likelihood of being judged in terms of her difference from the male majority, rather than in terms of her actual performance" (Valian, 1998: 140; also see Heilman, 1980; Finkelstein, Burke, and Raju, 1995). In the ensuing pages, I present a theoretical argument and close with implications for practice and theory.

THEORY AND PROPOSITIONS

AGE DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE
Illegal age discrimination is well documented (e.g., Arrowsmith and McGoldrick, 1997; Perry, Kulik, and Bourhis, 1996; Finkelstein, Burke, and Raju, 1995; Stroh, Brett, and Reilly, 1992; Bird and Fisher, 1986). Legal age discrimination, that which occurs against workers under age 40, because it is legal, is not. Yet, in the first half of this paper, I theorize that potential employers exhibit a pattern of behavior that tends to discriminate against older professional candidates who seek entry-level positions in a professional workplace. Support for such a contention can be induced from research on age norms in organizations, age stereotypes, and organizational socialization and training.

AGE NORMS
Age norms have long been recognized and operant in society. Indeed, "in all societies, age is one of the bases for ascription of status and one of the underlying dimensions by which social interaction is regulated" (Neugarten, Moore, and Lowe, 1965: 710, quoted in Lawrence, 1984). Societies create age norms for specific behaviors, as do organizations. The distribution of ages within organizations form implicit career timetables (Lawrence, 1984). When people are younger than age norms for a particular career or position they are viewed as "ahead of schedule"; those older than specified age norms are "behind schedule"; and those within the expected age range are "on schedule" (Lawrence, 1984; 1996b).
As Lawrence (1996a; 1987; 1988) observes, "Age acts like a coat rack on which people hang norms, values, and expectations." Often, people are not aware that age influences their behavior and may even deny that it does (Lawrence, 1996a; Rosen and Jerdee, 1976a, 1976b, 1977). However, researchers have shown that age norms do influence behavior (e.g., Lawrence, 1996a, b), which, in turn, can affect organizational rewards. Rosenbaum's (1984) longitudinal study of mobility within a large corporation revealed that employees who were behind in age-based career patterns were less likely to receive future promotions. Lawrence (1988), in her study of managers in an electric utility, found that age-group membership related to manager's performance ratings, regardless of the subordinate's age. In all cases, as defined by the age group, ahead-of-schedule managers were more likely to receive high performance ratings than on-schedule managers, and on-schedule managers were more likely to receive high performance ratings than behind-schedule managers. And related research has shown that, as subordinates' ages increase, supervisors' performance ratings of subordinates decrease (Ferris et al., 1985).
While research on age norms has focused on age-related perceptions after an employee is hired (e.g., Lawrence, 1988), such findings may be relevant to job candidates seeking entry-level positions. In particular, it may also be true that older professional candidates who seek entry-level positions will be viewed as "behind schedule" and would expect to be under-rewarded (e.g., not hired) compared to "on schedule" and "ahead of schedule" peers. To illustrate this contention, consider the following organizational story Lawrence uses (1987: 38) to highlight how age distributions drive the development of age norms that in turn create age effects:

A 38-year-old woman decides to reenter the work force before she is seen as too old.

Lawrence (1987: 40) further explains that:

On the individual level, the 38-year-old woman's decision to return to work is an indirect individual outcome based on her judgments of normal ages. She believes that employers use age as a criterion for hiring entry-level employees and that individuals who exceed the typical age have greater difficulties getting a job. Her judgment of the typical ages suggests that time is running out.

In this example, a 38-year-old woman perceives she may (soon) be too old for an entry-level position. Because she is under age forty, she has little legal recourse if she believes an employer does not hire her because of age. In short, age norms represent a potent form of social control that dictate acceptable ages for entry-level professional candidates.

AGE STEREOTYPES
Intertwined with studies on age norms is research into age stereotypes. This research, related to productivity and career entry, shows that employees' performance evaluations within a particular job are affected by the degree to which employees' ages adhere to job-age stereotypes, including the contention that certain jobs or positions are characterized as more appropriate for particular ages (e.g., Perry, Kulik, and Bourhis, 1996; Cleveland and Landy, 1987, 1983; Lawrence, 1988; Gordon and Arvey, 1986; Rosen and Jerdee, 1976a, b). For example, Cleveland and Landy (1983) demonstrated that people who exhibit a younger pattern of behaviors may be perceived (judged) to have a higher level of performance than people with an older pattern of behaviors in a younger job in spite of the fact that overall performance (i.e., the sum of the ratings) had been equated. Rosenbaum (1989: 334) argued that "employees are viewed as more capable if they ... are younger than their peers in their status level"--an observation that accords with Lawrence's theory described above about being on or off schedule. And Perry, Kulik, and Bourhis (1996) concluded that raters are more likely to use older worker stereotypes when applicants apply for ageincongruent jobs.
What are older worker stereotypes? Rosen and Jerdee (1976a) found that respondents of all ages viewed older persons as deficient in on-the-job performance, potential for development, certain interpersonal skills, vitality, and propensity for risk taking, while they scored higher than younger persons on integrity. In a related study, they found that stereotypes regarding older persons' physical, cognitive, and emotional characteristics resulted in age discrimination (Rosen and Jerdee, 1976b). Characteristics ascribed to older persons in this latter study included resistance to change, lack of creativity, cautiousness and slowness of judgment, lower physical capacity, disinterest in technological change, and untrainability. Other research has found that older workers are assumed to be slower, less flexible, less technically competent, and less competitive (Maloney and Paul, 1989; Warr, 1994).
As with age norms research, much of the research on age stereotypes has examined currently employed workers. However, this research can inform ideas about entry-level professional candidates. Employers may view older candidates who apply for entry level professional positions (1) as owning an older pattern of behaviors because they are applying for age-incongruent jobs and because of that (2) as potentially unfit for the entry-level professional position.

ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIALIZATION AND TRAINING
Related to research on age norms and stereotypes is research in organizational socialization and training. Research in organizational socialization reveals that employers attract newcomers, and newcomers select employers, based on perceived fit (e.g., Chatman, 1991; Schneider, 1987; Van Maanen and Schein, 1979). That is, employers assess one's "fitness" for membership--fitness includes an assessment of how easily the organization perceives it can acculturate the newcomer.
It appears rare, though, that age, as an indication of "fit," is highlighted. Instead, one finds evidence of a possible relationship in research on training and age discrimination. For example, in a study of Canadian employers, Gibson, Zerbe, and Franken (1993) found that younger workers were rated higher than older workers on potential for development. Dedrick and Dobbins (1991) concluded that training was recommended as less appropriate for older, than younger, subordinates. And Finkelstein and her colleagues (Finkelstein, Burke, and Raju, 1995; Finkelstein and Burke, 1996) determined that (1) younger people tended to rate older workers less positively in job qualification and potential for development, (2) an in-group bias among older managers worked against consideration of the older candidate, and (3) managers of all ages rated the older candidate as less interpersonally skilled, less economically beneficial, and less likely to warrant a job interview. A limitation inherent in these studies is that they tend to define "older" workers as fifty and above. Research is lacking on assessing differences between organizational perceptions of professional entry-level candidates in their early to mid-twenties and those rubbing up against forty.
To initially explore this "20-40 comparison," and in the context of a related study, I interviewed several first- and second-year MBA students and Career Services and School Admissions professionals from one law school and one business school in a large university in the western United States. In these exploratory interviews, respondents defined "younger" candidates as 25 to 35 years old and "older" candidates as anywhere from 30 to 50 years old. Consistent with Rosen and Jerdee's findings cited above (Rosen and Jerdee, 1976a, b), they perceived younger candidates as having less life and other experiences, more easily acculturated, more "moldable" and "malleable," and more hungry and willing to work long hours. They considered older candidates to be less willing to accept decrees as given, more experienced, more willing to question the justice or appropriateness of an action, more set in their ways, less malleable, more likely to bring baggage, and to be less willing to work long hours because of family obligations.
Hence, as with age norms and stereotypes, research and theory on socialization and training supports the notion that organizations (and prospective candidates) are less likely to view older candidates as a good "fit" to hire; they are viewed as less malleable, more encumbered with familial obligations, and less economically beneficial.

GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE
During much of this century, American women have postponed (or foregone entirely) their entry into the paid work force or pursuit of advanced education until after they have had children. For some, this is a result of years of acculturation into traditional gender roles; for others, the behavior materializes from a realistic understanding of a woman's biological clock--the nature-imposed limit on a woman's fertility.
The women's movement, which gained strength during the 1970s, has helped to revise traditional gender roles. The advent of assisted reproduction techniques, realizing the most celebrated success in 1982 with the birth of the world's first "test-tube" baby, has allowed women to circumvent their biological clocks by using fertility drugs to enhance their fertility at older ages (e.g., Lauersen, and Bouchez, 1991; Rosenberg and Epstein, 1993).(FN1) Hence, women today, who desire children sometime in the future, seem assured that they can pursue a career and/or higher education long before they have children.
Evidence exists for this assurance in the aging of first-time mothers. Data for years 1940 to 1955 and 1960 to 1992 show that a mother's age at the time she bears her first child has been steadily increasing; fewer women are starting families at age 24 or younger and more women are waiting until their late twenties, thirties, and even forties (National Center for Health Statistics, 1995). Additional data reveal a strong trend that better educated women are waiting longer to have children (Rindfuss, Morgan, and Offutt, 1996) and that childless women from the ages of 35 to 44 are more likely to be unmarried, better educated, and have a career than are mothers of the same age category (Crispell, 1993). Lobel and St. Clair (1992) examined a subset of executive education graduates who were married and/or parents (465 men, 330 women). Women were more likely to be non-parents than men (51 men, 125 women). In short, contemporary women appear to be delaying (or foregoing) childbirth to pursue higher education and careers.
It follows, then, that women in their early twenties, subsequent to earning a bachelor's degree, face a decision that most men do not. They can choose one of three paths: (1) have children and delay or forego a career, (2) simultaneously have children and pursue a career or (3) pursue a career and delay (or choose never to have) children. Below I examine each option.

CHILDREN FIRST, NO CAREER
During pre-industrial times, women performed all kinds of productive work; because of their contribution, they held more gender equity with men. As industrialization removed work from the home, it created a separate public and private sphere (Duby and Perrot, 1992-1994): children and matters of the home comprised a woman's responsibility (private); commerce, professions, government, and matters of the workplace comprised a man's responsibility (public). Women were expected to marry rather than pursue higher education or career, while men were expected to do both. In short, the traditional model became that of a man negotiating the world to support his wife and family, while the woman stayed home to tend to children and hearth.(FN2)
This understanding, that women married subsequent to high school (age 17 or 18), and bore their first child soon after, accords with data on marriage ages and rates and the age of first-time mothers. In 1960, the median age for a woman's first marriage was 20.3 years; by 1998, she was marrying at age 25 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999a). In 1960, 65 percent of women (aged 15 years and older) were married and 19 percent never married; by 1998, that first number had declined to 55 percent and the latter had increased to 25 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999b). In 1960, approximately 270 per 1000 women gave birth for the first time; of these 270, the majority or 105 (39 percent) were aged 18 or 19 (National Center for Health Statistics, 1995). By 1992, only 222 per 1000 women gave birth for the first time; of these 222, the majority remained among 18-19-year-olds. However, the rate had declined considerably from 39 percent to 29 percent (National Center for Health Statistics, 1995). Even more interesting was the fact that more women appeared to be waiting longer to have their first child. From 1960 to 1992, the percentage of women giving birth for the first time decreased among women aged 18-19 and 20-24 (from 33 percent to 24 percent) and increased among women aged 25-29 (from 9.8 percent to 19 percent), 30-34 (from 3.2 percent to 9.5 percent), 35-39 (from 1.1 percent to 3 percent), and 40-44 (from .2 percent to .5 percent) (National Center for Health Statistics, 1995).
One of the most meaningful events for women during the three decades spanning 1960 to 1990 was the women's movement. Feminist writers, most notably Betty Friedan (1963) and Simone De Beauvoir (1952), questioned the expectation that a woman's life was limited exclusively to the home; rather women, as did men, required professional validation and intellectual stimulation--needs that a life constrained to children and hearth could not fulfill.(FN3) Other writers followed. For example, in 1977, Marilyn French published The Woman's Room detailing a woman's struggle for her identity long after she had married and had children. Also, during these decades, universities, previously all-male domains, opened their doors to women to enroll in graduate professional programs (e.g., see Curran, 1995); others went as far as creating degree-granting programs in gender studies. Women had certainly come a long way, baby.

CHILDREN FIRST, CAREER FIRST
The women's movement brought an understanding that a woman could have it all: she could pursue a career and have children (e.g., Lee, 1997; Buttner and Moore, 1997; Galant, 1996). On the one hand, however, expectations about a woman's responsibility for home and children persist today (Valian, 1998). On the other hand, pursuing a professional career requires time, youth, and stamina, as does childbearing, child rearing, and keeping up with other home and family responsibilities.
To begin with, a professional career requires early entry to advance--with some, such as academia, law, or medicine, requiring multiple years of education and subsequent years until a person attains a minimum level of career success (e.g., academic tenure, law partner, respected medical reputation). Second, it demands long hours, dedication, and high energy to realize the desired success, requiring upwards to eighty hours a week and often considerable travel (e.g., Pringle, 1998; Finkelstein, Seal, Schuster, 1998; Myers, 1998; Johnston, 1996; Thornton, 1996; Phelan-Adams, 1993).
In short, pursuing a professional career is a full-time job, yet society continues to expect women, more than men, to also assume primary responsibility for home and family (e.g., Peters, 1998; Valian, 1998). As one scholar noted, "caring for children will always be difficult to combine with occupations where dedication and competence are seen to reside in full-time commitment and long working hours" (Pringle, 1998: 5).(FN4)
Pundits refer to women's home-work and their office-work as doing "double duty" or holding down a "second shift." Women find that their second job begins when they arrive home, at night, after a long day in the office, to fix dinner, do the laundry, help the kids with their homework, and then get them to bed. Such a realization prompted Felice Schwartz (1989) to promulgate an alternative career track, labeled by some a "mommy track." A "mommy track" would derail a woman and allow her to maintain a job but sacrifice her career success so that she could effectively perform her duties at home. Critics blasted the "mommy track" as discriminatory because it capped a women's career opportunities (e.g. Feinstein, 1990; Hopkins, 1990; Couturier, 1989).
The women's movement has urged men to share household responsibilities with women. Recent political developments brought the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, designed to enhance family-friendly work policies for both sexes. Yet, despite these strides, women continue to bear the brunt of household chores and child rearing (e.g., Linden, 1997; Hersch and Stratton, 1994), and both government and industry are still remiss in providing adequate policies to help women (and men) balance work and family responsibilities (Magid, 1986; Bailyn, 1992; Wever, 1998).
Without, or even with, shared household responsibilities, and with or without children, women face an extraordinary battle if they desire career success. First, women perceive that they have to work as hard as or harder than men to reap similar professional benefits, even while assuming primary responsibilities for home and family (Stroh, Brett, and Reilly, 1992; Gaffney, McEwen, and Welsh, 1990; Valian, 1998), and while being expected to accommodate their careers to their husband's (Schaller, 1990). Second, employment gaps, voluntary or involuntary time absent from a paid work force, negatively impact income for women as well as men (Strober, 1982; Devanna, 1984; Schneer and Reitman, 1990; Olson, Frieze, and Detlefsen, 1990; Kiecker, Hunt, and Chonko, 1995; Valian, 1998). Third, research has shown that, regardless of occupational field, women had lower career-peak self-pay expectations than men, a phenomenon that seems mediated by concerns about fair pay standards (Jackson, Gardner, and Sullivan, 1992; also see Valian, 1998). Fourth, women may face employment discrimination if they are pregnant (Halpert, Wilson, and Hickman, 1993) and/or general sex-based stereotyping (Dobbins, Truxillo, and Cardy, 1988; Schaller, 1990; Fagenson and Jackson, 1990; Maupin and Lehman, 1994; Hull and Umansky, 1997; Valian, 1998). Fifth, some women believe their job demands have negatively affected their marriage (King and Stockard, 1990), while others believe that childbearing has negatively affected their career advancement (Levinson, Toll, and Lewis, 1989). Sixth, executive women have encouraged would-be female executives to choose between work and family (Graham, 1986). In short, women have come to realize that putting both children and career first is not as easy as it sounds; rather they must sacrifice something early on--career or family--and hope to make it up later (e.g., Myers, 1998; Schaller, 1990; Levinson, Tolle, and Lewis, 1989).

CAREER FIRST, CHILDREN SECOND
Faced with the challenge of pursuing both a career and a family, as a third option, women can choose career over family in the short term (e.g., Levinson, Tolle, and Lewis, 1989). Unfortunately, when the long term arrives, many women find that they have difficulty conceiving children. In a study of voluntary childlessness in Britain, researchers found that for some couples it was infertility or demanding careers that took the decision to have children away from them (McAllister and Clark, 1998).
Moreover, having children in a woman's early twenties is healthier; she is more likely to have a baby naturally (little need for assisted reproductive techniques), less likely to have ailments (endometriosis, ovarian cancer, ovarian cysts, and the like--all which result when a woman's menses does not temporarily cease, see e.g., Lauersen, and Bouchez, 1991; Rosenberg and Epstein, 1993), more likely to have the energy to raise a healthy child, and less likely to be absent because of infertility-related ailments. Hence, one can argue that if career-related decisions were not salient, women might choose to have children earlier than later, and therefore would tend to be those who entered the work force at an older age and with less direct work experience. However, women consciously choose to delay having children for their career (e.g., Levinson, Tolle, and Lewis, 1989), seeming to recognize time constraints relevant to career pursuits as more salient than time constraints to have children.(FN5)

LINKING GENDER DISCRIMINATION TO AGE DISCRIMINATION
Earlier I argued that employers may legally discriminate against older workers (under age 40). They prefer hiring younger workers for entry-level professional positions because they recognize that these positions require high energy and long lead times before a person attains career success. Similarly, I argued that women in their early twenties, subsequent to earning their bachelor's degree, face a choice to pursue a career and/or have children. Those women who desire career success in a profession, such as law, medicine, finance, or academia, recognize that they must delay, because of the time and energy commitment required, childbirth and child rearing until they are well ensconced in their profession of choice. Moreover, I proposed that women perceive that it is important for them to establish their careers before they have a family because it will be more difficult for them to enter the work force at a later age and excel at their careers. In short, their awareness of this necessary lead-time and of employers' pattern of legal age discrimination prompts women to establish careers before family. Hence, legal age discrimination (under age 40) disparately impacts women because delaying children until a woman's later years may create health problems and/or infertility issues.
In formal terms,
P1: Because it will be more difficult for them to enter the work force at a later age and excel at their careers (because of legal age discrimination), women perceive that it is important for them to establish their careers before they have a family. The anticipation of such age discrimination disparately impacts women because delaying children until later years may impair health and/or create infertility.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND THEORY

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
This pattern of age-gender discrimination has at least two implications for business practice today. First, it is potentially counterproductive to employers' interests. Research has shown that age and job performance generally are unrelated (McEvoy and Cascio, 1989). Experience, rather than age, often determines performance (Giniger, Dispenzieri, and Eisenberg, 1983; Avolio, Waldman, and McDaniel, 1990).
Additionally, contrary to popular thought, research reveals that older workers, with similar work experience, are as or more productive and loyal, are absent less, and have more life knowledge (Waldman and Avolio, 1986; McEvoy and Cascio, 1989; Machnes, 1992; Day, 1993). Moreover, older workers have been rated higher than younger workers on individual initiative, stability, and experience (Gibson, Zerbe, and Franken, 1993).
Second, work-family balance is a human issue, a growing issue, and a practical concern for business (Hooks, 1996). To ignore it or to assume that it is a woman's issue is to think narrowly and assume the environment is stable when it is not. Work-family balance has become and continues to be a burgeoning topic for men and women, and colors their job searches and the companies in which they choose to spend their time.

THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
The above argument lends fodder to the argument that the current normative structure of America's cultural work life (the so-called public life) rests on an arcane model: a man, with a stay-at-home wife, who enters public life to work. She tends to family, bearing children at an earlier, healthier age, while he enters the work force at a younger age and builds his career. A look at the present day reveals a different reality: both men and women enter public life at early ages to pursue their careers. Women face a ticking biological clock and must choose to delay children to pursue their career. Men do not sing to a biological clock and therefore do not need to choose between children and career.
A second component of this arcane model rests on the following assumption: Younger workers are more productive, more easily socialized, have more recent book knowledge, have fewer commitments, are more "hungry," and therefore are more desirable. This philosophy disparately impacts women who choose to delay their career to have children at a younger age when it is more healthy to do so, rewards women to have children later after they have advanced in their careers, and may negatively affect (both physically and professionally) women who then choose to take time off to raise children.
In short, evidence that documents the age-gender discrimination link has profound implications for modern America's normative professional structure, and nourishes recommendations for structural changes in professional society. Alternative models are needed that celebrate family-friendly professional lives for both women and men. These models would incorporate at least two components:
1. Recognize that work-family balance is not a woman's issue but a human issue. Talk and concern about work-family balance usually rest on women's shoulders, involve women in dialogue, and refer to women and what options they face. Instead, society needs to recognize that the need to balance work and family is a human issue, not a woman's issue (Valian, 1998). It affects women, men, children, economic structures, and other factors alike.
2. Embrace alternative work strategies. In the absence of an entirely different model, one that we may not yet be capable of envisioning, companies of all sizes need to embrace alternative work strategies. Such strategies include flex time, telecommuting, and compressed work weeks. Embracing such strategies entail (a) establishing company policies, (b) positively sanctioning use of such policies, including not limiting participants' opportunities for organizational rewards (e.g., promotion, pay increases), and (c) championing men's choices, as well as women's, to take family leave and to request participation in such.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have argued that potential employers exhibit a common pattern of behavior that acts to discriminate against older workers entering a specific workplace. These older workers would tend to be women who have delayed their careers or advanced education to have children. Women, at a decision-making point early in their lives, are aware of the pattern of discrimination. Women perceive that it is important for them to establish their careers before they have a family because it will be more difficult for them to enter the work force at a later age and excel at their careers. This anticipated age discrimination results in gender discrimination. Further, I outlined practical and theoretical implications of this research.
A final word of caution. I do not intend the argument herein to provide fodder for another "mommy track" or to provide evidence that women should stay in the home and out of the board room. On the contrary, because today we are faced with a rising Social Security retirement age, longer general life expectancies, better overall health of the elderly, more baby boomers who would prefer to work longer, and increasing numbers of retirees who have returned to the work force, more and more women (and men) will need to compete more vigorously for the available jobs. In addition, the exploding telecommunications field has opened up enormous opportunities for younger workers, the so-called "dot com" generation, who have technical expertise in electronic communication. This increased competition will contribute to the perception that women need to start earlier to gain the necessary experience to accomplish desired professional goals. Indeed, with the changing nature of the work force, it is even more critical to recognize how (legal) age discrimination gives birth to gender discrimination so as to envision alternative professional structures--ones that honor the marriage of work and family rather than tolerate it.
ADDED MATERIAL
I am grateful to Douglas Hill, Diane Bailey, Connie Gersick, Irene Frieze, Barbara Lawrence, and Gretchen Spreitzer for contributions they made to earlier drafts. I am also thankful for the hours Cecily Cooper and Karoleen Iskander spent gathering relevant materials.

FOOTNOTES
1 Assisted reproduction techniques (ART) range in degree of invasiveness from artificial insemination to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) accompanied by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI, a procedure in which a single sperm is injected directly into the egg). Most techniques require the woman to inject hormones into her body daily. For example, the most invasive procedure, IVF, can involve three stages of injections: an initial two-week period following the start of menses of Lupron, a second eight to ten days of Lupron accompanied by Gonal-F and Pergonal, and one injection of HCG, and a third stage, following an outpatient surgical procedure to "harvest" the ovaries (retrieve the eggs), of seven weeks of Progesterone. Lupron and Gonal-F are injected subcutaneously; Pergonal and Progesterone are injected intra-muscularly. Lupron acts to suppress ovulation to enable the fertility specialists to control the woman's cycle. Pergonal and Gonal-F act to increase a woman's follicle production, enabling doctors to harvest as many as twenty or thirty eggs. HCG stimulates the woman's system to ovulate in thirty-six hours from the time of injection. Progesterone supplements the woman's own production of the same until she reaches her ninth week of pregnancy at which time the amniotic sac is able to produce enough on its own to support a growing fetus.
Such techniques have improved considerably since their initial acclaim thirty years ago; however, they continue to be imperfect, often requiring women to endure three, four, even seventeen cycles before they become pregnant. Many women remain barren despite repeated attempts. Moreover, such procedures can be very expensive ($10,000 to $20,000 per cycle) and often are not covered by insurance.
2 I specifically refer to the male as a "man" rather than in his role as "husband" and the woman in her role as "wife." It was (and remains) typical that we refer to males in hominid terms and women in their social roles as wife, mother, or daughter.
3 An increasing divorce rate has also generated the need for women to establish careers before they have children. In 1960, 2.6 percent of women were divorced; by 1998, that number had increased to 10.3 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999a). Oftentimes, subsequent to divorce, women find themselves reentering the work force. At the time of their marriage, both the woman and man may be at equal professional levels. However, since women leave the work force and/or assume part-time status more often than men to raise children, men's professional success soars ahead, while women's stagnate and/or fall behind. Faced with divorce, women find themselves reentering the work force at levels (pay and responsibility) much lower than their former husbands (Ahrons, 1999).
4 Alternative work strategies including telecommuting and flex time may help alleviate the stress that women feel in balancing work and family. Yet, these same strategies may also limit a person's ability for promotions and other organizational rewards (see e.g., Kurland and Bailey, 1999).
5 Women may also wait until they are emotionally ready to have children. Women may desire to "see the world" or define emotional readiness in terms of their own feelings of financial security (regardless of their partner's contribution). Women recognize that the decision to have children may hinder their ability to travel. And financial security for ambitious professionals rarely occurs in a person's early twenties, a time prior to completing necessary education and training and moving up a few rungs of a career ladder. Hence, a woman's feeling of emotional readiness appears inextricably linked to her understanding that she, especially as the primary caretaker, will find her freedom of movement, peripatetically and professionally, constrained.

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