IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v33y2026i5p1644-1657.html

Stuck in the Waiting Room: An Analytical Essay Exploring Infertility at Work

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Lawrence‐Thomas
  • Rose Shepherd

Abstract

In this analytical essay, we use our embodied career experiences to explore infertility at work, placing our “infertile body” at the center of analysis. We consider the ways in which infertility has impacted our identities, careers, and timelines. By laying bare our experiences of battling infertility while trying to maintain a career in academia, we illustrate how infertility introduces a liminality that “leaks” across domains: shaping identity, distorting temporality, and ultimately reshaping how we engage with our careers. After years of infertility, we found ourselves in a state of “career liminality,” where our agency and sense of self became so eroded that proactively managing our careers was no longer possible. We highlight infertility as a major, yet under‐recognized, contextual factor shaping women's career progression, and suggest that this area demands urgent scholarly attention. In breaking our silence, we aim to open a conversation and encourage other scholars to develop this conversation further.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Lawrence‐Thomas & Rose Shepherd, 2026. "Stuck in the Waiting Room: An Analytical Essay Exploring Infertility at Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 1644-1657, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:33:y:2026:i:5:p:1644-1657
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.70148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.70148
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.70148?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:33:y:2026:i:5:p:1644-1657. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.