There's always another way: A case of female teachers' career mobility in Xiong'an New Area, China

This study focuses on the first group of female teachers in Xiong'an New Area of China and explores the phenomenon of career mobility, in which women in stable careers who meet gender expectations choose to leave their comfort zones and take on new challenges. The study finds that self-worth realization is the intrinsic motivation for female teachers to break out of their career comfort zones, and that the “Motherhood Penalty,” although posing obstacles, can be transformed into motivation for career development. On the one hand, career mobility stimulates women's intrinsic self-efficacy, makes them more confident in professional and family domains, and enhances women's family and professional power. On the other hand, the coupling of self-worth realization and social embeddedness stimulates women teachers' career mobility, which in turn realizes women's social empowerment. Structural support is also important for female career breakthroughs. This study constructs a multidimensional relational framework of female career mobility, emphasizing that female-dominated occupations should not be a compromise between women's internalization of traditional gender roles and their pursuit of socio-professional identities and that women's self-empowerment in mobility can reshape stereotyped gender roles. These findings provide new perspectives for understanding the complexity of female career mobility and policy implications for promoting female career development.