The Career Path Maze for Women in Youth Ministry
Why our career paths aren't so straightforward and what we can do about it
In my last post, I explored how holding low status (that is, being less respected, admired, and valued) can impact women in youth ministry. One of the negative consequences is not being recognized for increases in pay and responsibilities. Often when you hold low status, you simply aren’t visible enough to leaders to be considered for these things, even if you deserve them and your church would be willing and able to give them to you. This can obviously hold you back in your career.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to barriers women face regarding compensation and career paths in youth ministry. Today I want to unpack several more of these barriers related to women’s career paths in youth ministry.
First, women in youth ministry often face the issue of having an unclear career path. The way that many churches have thought about career paths has revolved around systems in which women have no clear target to aim toward in terms of promotions, advancement, growth, and recognition. (And while I don’t think we all need to be always chasing after promotions and advancement, it is Biblical to seek to grow, to have ambition, and to seek to be able to earn enough to provide for your needs.)
Many churches structure their staff roles such that things like recognition, advancement, and a meaningful increase in pay and benefits is primarily accessible through ordination. And, because women are much less likely to be ordained, even in egalitarian contexts, this means that all of this will be less available, if not entirely unavailable, to women. Anyone caught in a career in which they cannot advance in these ways may find that it is unsustainable in the long-term for them... especially if they’re already underpaid, as is often the case for youth workers. (And, by the way, I think this is a massive problem that churches ought to consider for everyone in ministry who’s not ordained, not just for women.)
Of course, one other way to sometimes get or negotiate higher pay is to be seen as the primary breadwinner for your family and to appeal to your family’s need for you to have a higher salary. Since women usually aren’t viewed this way — either they are married and have a husband who is assumed to be the primary breadwinner, or they are single and churches assume they don’t need to make as much — they will usually not be seen as eligible for this kind of pay raise either. In this way, being a “primary breadwinner” is one way to earn the status needed to get more pay. And this unfortunately results in a lot of women being paid less than they are worth. Regardless of one’s marital status, women ought to be paid a fair wage that reflects the value of the work they do.
Thinking more broadly again about career paths, consider the effect of unclear career paths on mentorship. When women don’t have clearly recognizable paths for advancement, others don’t think to mentor and invest in them. A male young adult starting out in ministry will often have a ministry mentor land in his lap, as a pastor recognizes his potential and takes him under his wing, investing in him with a vision for future leadership roles. But no one does the same thing for the women, because they are less likely to look at a female and think, “If I invest in this person, they could one day be doing ________ in ministry.” Without obvious paths for women to advance, leaders may overlook the importance of mentoring female staff.
And for women who want female mentors, the options are limited. This leaves women navigating leadership, growth, and career paths on their own with a lack of guidance.
Women will face barriers, detours, and winding roads in their career path. I know many guys that landed a youth director role within the first few years of graduating college, for instance, but most of the women I know who have ended up in director roles (including myself) only did so after over a decade of experience… and often after a lot of back and forth with one or more churches who weren’t sure about putting a female in that position.
Our career paths in ministry often sound a lot like what I hear secular sources describing about women’s career paths in the workplace more broadly. We’ve all heard of the glass ceiling, but have you heard of the sticky floor, the glass cliff, or the leadership labyrinth for women? These are all metaphors which have been used to discuss women’s challenges in career paths, and I’ve seen all of them show up for women in youth ministry.1 It’s like navigating a maze with traps, obstacles, and unmarked dangers.
In many ways, facing career path issues was a big piece of the pie that made me start asking more questions about how women fare long-term in youth ministry. And it was out of asking questions about how other women were facing challenges that eventually led me to where I am today, thinking and writing about these topics. Because it was a difficult thing for me to figure out, I want other women to be empowered with knowledge that I didn’t have. This post is but a small start in that direction, which I hope can get us all thinking and talking more about how we can do better and what actually makes sense long-term for women in youth ministry.
Change is possible. As we recognize these issues, we can begin to consider creative solutions, rethinking ways that we handle staffing and pay, so that women can be properly recognized. Let’s pave a better path for all ministry leaders.
And, while youth workers hardly work a 9a-5pm job, I can’t help but mention that Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” famously described some of these realities, too!