Women in the marketing profession: an exploration

Hunt (2002:305) expounded that a key "recurring theme" in marketing is the gap between the academic discipline and those practising it. When this debate is extrapolated to the issue of marketing careers, then a further side of the prism is exposed, namely what is the gap between what the academic discipline promises in terms of careers and the reality that practice offers. Indeed the debate about whether marketing is a profession (Brown et al, 2005; Enright, 2006) further complicates the topic. A useful starting point is Hagberg and Kjellberg (2010:1036) work which calls for "a broader understanding of marketing practice." It is to this "heterogeneity of marketing practitioners" (Hagberg and Kjellberg,2010:1036) that we subscribe to when undertaking our research. Marketing is considered to be a feminised industry yet there is little knowledge about the careers these women have in the profession. Typically research in the field has focused on the planning and implementation of marketing rather than the experiences of those doing the marketing. Drawing on an analysis of the UK Labour Force Survey this paper argues that women working in marketing are younger and more highly qualified than in other sectors but are less likely to be in senior decision-making roles. A proportion of older women in the industry are also self-employed suggesting that marketing talent may be being lost to corporate marketing but not necessarily to the industry. The paper presents a picture of the employment of women in marketing in the UK and discusses reasons for this and also attempts to contextualise these findings in the profession from a European perspective. Suggestions for future research directions are also given.