Black Women in Management Paid Work and Family Formations

Black Women in Management highlights the trials, tribulations and achievements of professional and managerial black African women who now form part of the ever increasing number of women in paid employment worldwide. Focusing on the career and family lives of professional and managerial black African women originating from Sub-Saharan Africa and on the lives of black African women living and working within the corporate private sector in Johannesburg and London, this book explores how such women, with relatively similar colonial histories, cultures, career and professional backgrounds, handle their complex social positioning.

As black African women with careers in major cities on opposite sides of the globe, the professional and managerial women, or transnational and emerging black elite women in the book are unique both in the workplace and in their communities. Although the women are part of the majority population in South Africa, they remain minorities within the professional and managerial circles of South Africa's corporate private sector. This is despite a strong sense amongst some South Africans that of all historically disadvantaged South Africans, black African women have benefited the most from employment equality polices. In the UK, black Africans form part of the growing black and minority ethnic (BME) groups in the country. However, while black African women form part of this growing black African community in the country, they remain minorities within the UK population, but also remain minorities in their role as professional and managerial women within the corporate private sector. This is in spite of black Africans having fairly high rates of higher education amongst the country's BME population. Black Women in Management identifies some of the differences and/or similarities that exist between these women's career choices and progression and explores how they address socio-cultural and gendered expectations of domestic, social and caring commitments as career women living and working in two urban cities - one African, the other European.