RISE after interruption: an intersectional framework for women's career interruption and reintegration

Women's occupational status, understood as access to stable employment, career continuity, and advancement opportunities, has long been shaped by structural inequalities rather than individual choice alone (Kooli, 2022). Across labor markets, women experience more fragmented and nonlinear career trajectories than men, marked by interruptions, irregular progression, and constrained mobility (Elley-Brown et al., 2018). Career interruptions, periods of temporary or permanent withdrawal from paid employment, are shaped by interlocking economic, social, and organizational forces, including income instability, occupational segregation, caregiving expectations, and workplace exclusion (Holzer and LaLonde, 2000; Schneer and Reitman, 1997; Crowley, 2013) (see Figure 1).

Although caregiving responsibilities such as childcare, marriage, and elder care are frequently framed as barriers to women's workforce reentry, recent scholarship distinguishes these responsibilities as precursors to interruption rather than obstacles that emerge only at reintegration (Islam and Fay, 2024). These interruptions often initiate a sequence of cumulative disadvantages, including weakened professional networks, skill depreciation, wage penalties, and identity disruption, all of which shape the conditions under which women attempt to return to work (Bian and Wang, 2019). Reintegration is therefore not a neutral return but a socially situated process of resocialization within organizational contexts that often continue to privilege uninterrupted, linear careers (Kossek et al., 2017). Despite extensive research on women's career interruptions, existing scholarship remains fragmented across disciplines such as economics, psychology, sociology, and human resource development. Studies typically isolate single drivers or outcomes, such as motherhood penalties, deskilling, or labor market reentry, without integrating these dynamics into a coherent, multilevel understanding of how interruptions unfold over time (Li et al., 2022). This fragmentation limits the field's ability to explain why similar interruptions produce divergent reintegration outcomes across women and contexts.

An intersectional perspective is essential for addressing this gap. In this study, intersectionality is used as an analytic framework to examine how gender interacts with race, ethnicity, class, age, immigration status, and occupational location to shape differentiated experiences of interruption and reintegration. Rather than treating identities as additive characteristics, an intersectional approach highlights how overlapping social positions intensify or mitigate exposure to structural constraints, producing uneven reintegration pathways that cannot be understood through gender alone (Potter et al., 2019). As an illustration, organizational barriers such as inflexible work arrangements or credential devaluation do not operate uniformly; they are disproportionately concentrated among women whose intersecting identities place them at greater risk of labor market marginalization (Rodriguez et al., 2024). Contemporary career landscapes further complicate women's reintegration experiences. Increased transnational mobility, occupational polarization, and precarious employment have reshaped the conditions under which women exit and reenter the workforce (Caringal-Go et al., 2022). While the COVID-19 pandemic intensified these dynamics and rendered them more visible, it did not create them. Pandemic-era disruptions amplified longstanding inequities rooted in caregiving norms, labor market segmentation, and systemic bias (Carli, 2020). Yet, even outside crisis contexts, women, particularly those in low-wage, essential, or immigrant-dominated occupations, continue to face disproportionate interruptions and constrained reintegration options (Fielding-Singh et al., 2024).

Although prior studies have documented the prevalence and immediate consequences of women's career interruptions (Bächmann and Gatermann, 2017; O'Connell and McKinnon, 2021), less attention has been paid to the processes and mechanisms through which women navigate reintegration over time, especially across intersecting social locations. Existing research often stops at documenting inequality rather than explaining how structural, organizational, interpersonal, and individual factors interact to produce trajectories of career continuity, partial reintegration, or labor market exit (Brooks et al., 2024).

Accordingly, this study seeks to advance an integrated understanding of women's career interruption and reintegration by synthesizing interdisciplinary evidence through an intersectional lens. Moving beyond crisis-specific explanations, the review examines how enduring structures of inequality shape women's exit from paid work, their attempts to return, and the quality and sustainability of reintegration outcomes across contexts. Guided by this purpose, the study addresses the following research questions:

1. What processes characterize women's exit from, attempts to reenter, and reintegration into the workforce?

2. What multilevel, intersectional factors shape trajectories of career continuity, partial exit, opting out, and reintegration?

Intersectionality theory provides an analytic framework for examining how multiple, overlapping social identities, such as gender, race, class, age, and immigration status, interact with systems of power to shape differentiated experiences of advantage and disadvantage (Cole, 2009). Rather than treating identities as discrete or additive categories, intersectionality emphasizes how social positions are relationally constructed and unevenly valued within institutional, organizational, and social contexts. Originating in Black feminist scholarship, the concept of intersectionality was articulated by Crenshaw (1989) in response to the limitations of single-axis approaches in feminist theory and anti-discrimination law. Crenshaw demonstrated that analyses centered solely on gender often reflect the experiences of white, Western women, obscuring the distinct forms of exclusion faced by women whose identities intersect across race, class, and other axes of marginalization. Intersectionality thus shifts analytic attention from universalized accounts of women's experiences to the ways power operates through intersecting structures to produce qualitatively different outcomes (Turner, 2002).

Within career and work research, intersectionality challenges dominant assumptions of linear, uninterrupted career progression by foregrounding how labor market opportunities and constraints are stratified along intersecting identity lines (Bierema, 2024). In the field of Human Resource Development, scholars have increasingly adopted intersectionality to examine how power dynamics embedded in organizational systems shape career development, mobility, and exclusion for marginalized groups (Sim and Jeong, 2023). This work highlights that career disadvantage does not stem from identity alone but from the interaction between identity and institutional arrangements, including employment policies, evaluation systems, and informal workplace norms. Intersectionality is particularly relevant for understanding career interruptions and reintegration because interruptions are not experienced uniformly (Turner, 2002). Women with compounded marginalized identities are more likely to encounter prolonged or repeated interruptions and face greater barriers upon reentry (Cole, 2009). Caregiving-related exits, such as maternity leave, require women to renegotiate professional and social identities simultaneously, a process that may carry different consequences depending on race, occupational status, or access to organizational support (Kossek et al., 2023). Intersectionality enables analysis of how these identity negotiations are structured by unequal access to flexibility, legitimacy, and career protection.

Importantly, intersectionality extends beyond structural explanations to account for relational and covert dynamics that shape reintegration experiences. Even in organizations with formally equitable policies, subtle practices such as selective incivility, exclusion from informal networks, or marginalization in hybrid work arrangements can reproduce inequality in less visible ways (Ozturk, 2021). Reintegration outcomes therefore depend not only on formal structures but also on interpersonal relationships with supervisors, colleagues, and mentors, which can either reinforce or mitigate institutional disadvantage (Ozturk, 2021). Taken together, intersectionality functions in this study as a multilevel analytic lens that captures how structural conditions, organizational practices, interpersonal dynamics, and individual identities interact to shape women's career interruptions and reintegration trajectories. By centering interaction, power, and relationality, this framework provides the conceptual foundation for analyzing why similar interruptions produce divergent outcomes and for developing an integrated model of reintegration that moves beyond descriptive accounts of inequality.

To achieve the two primary objectives of this study, we employed an integrative literature review methodology as conceptualized by Torraco (2005). This approach is particularly appropriate when the goal is theory development and conceptual integration rather than effect-size aggregation or bibliometric mapping. Torraco's integrative review framework enables systematic synthesis across diverse empirical and conceptual studies, supporting the identification of recurring mechanisms, conceptual advances, and gaps within fragmented bodies of literature (Torraco, 2016). It is especially well suited to research areas characterized by rapid social and organizational change, as it allows scholars to periodically revisit and integrate emerging evidence to generate new theoretical perspectives. Consistent with Torraco's methodological guidelines (2016), this review involved the development of inclusion criteria aligned with the research questions, systematic identification of relevant studies, comparative analysis of core concepts, integrative synthesis of findings, and the generation of theoretically informed directions for future research. Importantly, the analytic focus extended beyond descriptive categorization to emphasize conceptual integration, with particular attention to how structural, organizational, interpersonal, and individual factors interacted across intersecting social identities to shape women's career interruption and reintegration trajectories. This interpretive synthesis directly informed the development of the RISE model as a process-oriented framework linking multilevel moderators to divergent reintegration pathways.

To ensure methodological rigor and comprehensive coverage, the search process was conducted in collaboration with an experienced academic reference librarian at a top-tier U.S. university. The multidisciplinary search spanned education, cultural studies, career development, and human resource development and was conducted across seven major academic databases: Web of Science, Education Source Ultimate, Business Source Ultimate, Gender Studies Database, Human Resource Abstracts, ERIC (EBSCO), and Google Scholar. Keywords were used independently and in combination, including women OR female employees, career interruption, career break, re-entry, opting in, and opting out. To align with the study's intersectional lens, additional terms captured overlapping and marginalized identities, including intersectionality, race, ethnicity, immigrant women, minority women, social class, and gender bias. The initial search yielded 226 records (see Table 1).

The following inclusion criteria were applied to guide the selection of relevant articles for this integrative literature review: studies had to be published between 2019 and 2025, appear in peer-reviewed academic journals, be written in English, and be available in full-text format. Additionally, each article needed to focus on women's career interruptions and/or reintegration, with particular attention to how intersecting identities (race, ethnicity, class, or immigration status) shape these processes. To ensure the review reflected the study's intersectional lens, eligible studies were required to report empirical findings and engage explicitly or implicitly with issues of inequality, marginalization, or compounded identity.

Using these criteria, we conducted multiple rounds of screening on the initial pool of 226 results retrieved from seven databases. We began by identifying and removing 37 duplicate records, leaving 189 articles for abstract screening. Next, we reviewed the abstracts for language and relevance, followed by a check for full-text availability. In this study, accessibility referred specifically to whether the complete article could be retrieved through institutional subscriptions, interlibrary loan requests, or author correspondence. Despite attempts to obtain the 33 articles not available through standard channels, full texts could not be secured, and these articles were excluded. Of the remaining 156 full-text articles, each was evaluated based on its research focus and methodology. This evaluation involved determining whether the study explicitly addressed women's career interruptions, whether it incorporated or was relevant to an intersectional perspective, and whether it reported empirical findings rather than conceptual commentary. Studies that did not meet these thresholds (theoretical essays, policy briefs, or those focusing exclusively on men) were excluded. This process reduced the pool to 45 eligible studies for final review. Screening was conducted by two researchers independently. Disagreements regarding inclusion were deliberated through discussion until consensus was reached, with a third reviewer consulted in cases of continued disagreement.

To prepare the 45 eligible articles for analysis, we developed a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to code key information, including (a) author(s), (b) year of publication, (c) title, (d) database, (e) journal, (f) research purpose/questions/hypotheses, (g) research methodology, (h) research methods, (i) study sample, and (j) major findings. We also coded for intersectional factors (race, class, caregiving, or immigration status) to capture how compounded disadvantages were addressed across studies. The thematic analysis process was conducted using inductive coding to allow patterns to emerge organically from the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Two researchers independently reviewed the studies and coded for preliminary themes, which were then compared and discussed to ensure consistency. Discrepancies were resolved through collaborative deliberation until agreement was reached. Excel was used to manage coding and theme development; no additional software was employed given the manageable dataset. The iterative process involved clustering codes into higher-order categories, which formed the basis for the thematic synthesis presented in the findings.

An inductive thematic analysis of the 45 eligible studies was conducted. Two reviewers independently coded each study's findings, compared interpretations, and reconciled discrepancies through discussion, with a third reviewer consulted when consensus was not reached. Codes were iteratively clustered into higher-order categories, producing four themes. For each theme, we report (a) the number of studies supporting the theme, (b) representative contexts by country and sector, and (c) counterexamples where relevant. Intersectional disadvantages, barriers arising from the overlap of gender with race, class, or immigration status, were coded explicitly to ensure systematic attention to compounded inequalities. Across the 45 studies, the synthesis revealed four themes that recur across sectors and national contexts: (1) the intersection of caregiving, gender, and socioeconomic position; (2) economic disparities and deskilling; (3) workplace inflexibility and institutionalized gender biases; and (4) mental health and professional identity disruption. Table 2 summarizes each theme's frequency, dominant intersectional modifiers, typical sectors and regions, and counterexamples (e.g. subsidized childcare, credential recognition reforms, and mental health supports) that partially mitigated disadvantage.

Across studies, caregiving emerged as a primary trigger of women's career interruptions and a persistent constraint on reintegration, operating through two mechanisms: time-based displacement (reduced paid work hours or exit) and norm-based penalty (expectations that caregiving signals lower commitment). Although the COVID-19 pandemic intensified these dynamics, the reviewed evidence consistently frames the pandemic as an amplifier of longstanding gendered care arrangements rather than their origin (Stefanova et al., 2021; Carli, 2020; Fielding-Singh et al., 2024). A central pattern is that caregiving burdens were stratified by socioeconomic resources and immigration status, shaping both the likelihood of interruption and the feasibility of reentry. Women in low-income households and immigrant women faced compounded constraints due to limited access to affordable childcare and unstable employment, increasing workforce exit and financial insecurity (Lightman, 2024; Wanger, 2024). Single motherhood intensified vulnerability because caregiving demands were less buffered by household or community support (Lightman, 2024; Wanger, 2024). In contrast, women in professional and white-collar roles more often remained employed but reported a different pathway: remote work blurred boundaries and expanded unpaid labor, which increased role conflict, emotional fatigue, and stalled advancement (Kangas et al., 2023; Stefanova et al., 2021).

Several studies converge on gendered time loss as a measurable pathway to career disruption. Using high-frequency data from Austria, Hanzl and Rehm (2023) found that during school closures mothers reduced paid work hours by 31.5%, more than twice the reduction among fathers, including in dual-earner households. In parallel, studies document caregiving overload without institutional support, particularly for women balancing childcare and elder care, which increased stress and the likelihood of permanent withdrawal (Lafferty et al., 2021; Lafkas et al., 2023). Childress et al. (2023) likewise show that mothers devoted more time to childcare than fathers across employment statuses, reinforcing that caregiving-related interruption is not merely an individual “choice” but an outcome shaped by unequal household and institutional arrangements (Carli, 2020). Intersectionality sharpened these patterns by showing that caregiving is not uniformly experienced. Laster Pirtle and Wright (2021) show that for many Black and brown women, the home was not simply a private refuge but a site of intensified labor, emotional strain, and heightened risk, including domestic violence, revealing how structural gendered racism shaped exposure to harm and constrained reintegration possibilities. These findings align with broader evidence that unpaid care work remains undervalued and often invisible, with consequences that are magnified for women in financially vulnerable households (Sri Gugan et al., 2024; Stefanova et al., 2021).

Importantly, reintegration was repeatedly described as an identity and legitimacy problem, not only a logistical one. Women returning after interruptions reported difficulty reclaiming professional identity and re-establishing credibility, particularly in high-performance fields with continuous productivity expectations (Freeney et al., 2024; Gregor et al., 2023). In academia, caregiving constraints were compounded by expectations for unpaid service work, delaying recovery and advancement (Gregor et al., 2023). In highly specialized professions with rigid training timelines, such as gastroenterology, women reported that lack of job-sharing and inflexible institutional pathways created cumulative disadvantage across interruption and reentry (O'Connell and McKinnon, 2021; Manthopoulou et al., 2025). A key mechanism linking caregiving to reintegration barriers is visibility management and associated emotional labor. Kossek et al. (2021) report that women in professional sectors, including STEM, felt pressure to conceal caregiving responsibilities to protect a professional image, which increased psychological burden and constrained reintegration. This finding is consistent with evidence that “support” policies may exist but do not remove stigma when ideal-worker norms remain intact (Kossek et al., 2021; Sri Gugan et al., 2024). Across contexts, caregiving operates as a multilevel driver of interruption and reintegration difficulty through time loss, stigma, identity negotiation, and uneven access to resources, patterns that intensify for women at the intersection of low income, single parenthood, racialization, and immigration status (Lightman, 2024; Laster Pirtle and Wright, 2021; Sri Gugan et al., 2024).

Across studies, economic disruption was not limited to temporary job loss; it operated through mechanisms of precarity concentration, credential devaluation, and penalty for employment gaps, producing long-run reintegration scarring. Although pandemic-era conditions heightened economic vulnerability in female-dominated sectors, the literature consistently attributes disparities to pre-existing labor market segmentation and unequal access to protections (Kabeer et al., 2021; Sri Gugan et al., 2024). A core intersectional pattern is that women of color and immigrant women were disproportionately concentrated in precarious low-wage roles, increasing exposure to layoffs and reducing access to financial buffers during interruptions (Kabeer et al., 2021; Andrea et al., 2022). Multiple studies identify deskilling as a distinct mechanism shaping reintegration for highly educated immigrant women who were pushed into low-pay, low-skill roles due to non-recognition of foreign credentials, barriers to licensing, and biased hiring practices (Riaño, 2021; Nardon et al., 2021; Abularrage et al., 2024). In this pathway, reintegration is not a return to prior status but a downward reentry shaped by institutional gatekeeping.

Economic disadvantage was compounded where policy protections did not reach marginalized workers. Cross and Gonzalez Benson (2020) report that immigration status and employment in informal or unstable sectors excluded many women from relief programs, entrenching vulnerability. Donner (2020) similarly shows how exclusion from pandemic recovery efforts intensified underemployment and economic insecurity. Laster Pirtle and Wright (2021) extend this logic by describing a structural contradiction: women of color were overrepresented in essential health work yet excluded from key protections, making visible how “essentiality” did not translate into safety or compensation. Several studies document how intersectional inequalities shaped exposure to risk and constrained recovery. Andrea et al. (2022) found Black and Latinx women with lower educational attainment experienced among the highest rates of temporary and permanent job displacement and were least likely to access remote work, increasing health risk alongside financial strain. Older women in physically demanding low-wage roles faced additional reintegration barriers where health benefits and job protections were limited (Andrea et al., 2022). Beyond service sectors, structural shocks in trade-sensitive industries also disproportionately displaced older and less-educated women, especially in textiles and apparel, where import competition replaced domestic labor (Yu, 2023; Lightman, 2024).

The reviewed evidence also connects interruptions to enduring economic penalties during reintegration. Freeney et al. (2024) report average income losses ranging from 18% to 28% for women returning after extended career breaks, consistent with a “scar” mechanism where gaps are stigmatized and women are funneled into lower-paid roles. In academia, Gregor et al. (2023) document how misalignment between institutional expectations and women's interrupted trajectories contributed to exits from tenure-track pathways. In highly specialized medical fields, Manthopoulou et al. (2025) show persistent gender pay disparities at senior levels, underscoring that inequality can remain entrenched even when women “successfully” reintegrate. Economic disadvantage shapes reintegration through stratified exposure to precarity, credential and licensing barriers, policy exclusion, and gap penalties, producing divergent reintegration outcomes that are especially severe for immigrant women, women of color, and older women in low-wage or trade-sensitive sectors (Riaño, 2021; Cross and Gonzalez Benson, 2020; Yu, 2023).

Across studies, workplace reintegration was constrained by a persistent mismatch between women's lived realities and organizational definitions of the “ideal worker.” Even where family-friendly working arrangements (FFWAs) expanded, the evidence suggests they often produced limited structural change and did not neutralize bias, particularly in promotion, evaluation, and leadership pathways (Wanger, 2024; Doerwald et al., 2021). A key cross-study mechanism is that formal flexibility policies were frequently symbolic or unevenly beneficial, helping those with existing privileges while failing to address intensified constraints among marginalized women (McLaughlin and Fearon, 2022). In Germany, Wanger (2024) found only modest improvements in promotion prospects under FFWAs, and limited relief from the dual burden of caregiving and leadership expectations. In academia, Kossek et al. (2023) report that tenure-clock extensions often provided minimal practical relief when caregiving demands and productivity norms remained unchanged.

Institutionalized bias operated through recurring stereotypes: women, especially mothers, were perceived as less committed, less reliable, or less suited for leadership, shaping hiring, promotion, and reintegration outcomes (Sri Gugan et al., 2024; Borger et al., 2025). In STEM and other high-status fields, deviation from uninterrupted career scripts triggered credibility penalties, narrowing opportunities during reintegration (Meuris and Merluzzi, 2024; Sri Gugan et al., 2024). Barkhuizen et al. (2022) similarly show that interruptions were often interpreted as reduced ambition, reinforcing occupational sorting into lower-visibility roles. Sectoral evidence illustrates cumulative impacts. In gastroenterology, women were markedly underrepresented in senior leadership roles (Manthopoulou et al., 2025), consistent with the broader pattern that interruption stigma and narrow criteria for success produce long-run stratification. Cross-national studies also show the importance of cultural norms: in South Korea, Confucian-influenced expectations that caregiving is women's duty reinforced workforce exits and constrained reintegration within inflexible organizational systems (Jimin, 2024; Kim et al., 2024). Workplace inflexibility constrains reintegration through weak or unequal flexibility implementation, persistent ideal-worker norms, and gendered evaluation systems, dynamics that intensify when caregiving identities intersect with cultural norms and marginalization in leadership pipelines (Wanger, 2024; Kossek et al., 2023; Kim et al., 2024).

Across studies, career interruptions were consistently associated with psychological strain that both resulted from interruption and shaped the capacity to reintegrate. The evidence supports a mechanism of resource depletion (time, energy, social support) that contributes to stress and burnout and can precipitate withdrawal or delayed reentry (Lafferty et al., 2021; Corrente et al., 2024). While the pandemic intensified stressors, the reviewed literature repeatedly frames mental health strain as a broader consequence of navigating unpaid care, economic insecurity, and stigmatized nonlinearity (Henke, 2022; Islam and Fay, 2024). In multiple contexts, women reported heightened exhaustion, anxiety, and disillusionment as they attempted to sustain professional performance alongside intensified home demands (Corrente et al., 2024; Loreto et al., 2021). In STEM academia, women described environments as “chilly to frigid,” reflecting both emotional fatigue and reduced belonging, which contributed to reconsideration of long-term career trajectories (Gregor et al., 2023; Lotte et al., 2025). Freeney et al. (2024) similarly emphasize that mental strain extends into reintegration by undermining confidence and perceived employability.

Intersectional differences were pronounced. Single mothers, immigrant women, and women of color were more likely to face reduced access to mental health services and weaker support systems, compounding stress during interruption and reentry (Lightman, 2024; Yu, 2023). Studies also identify guilt and identity conflict as recurring reintegration barriers, particularly where organizational cultures stigmatize nonlinearity and treat caregiving as incompatible with professionalism (Cottingham et al., 2019; Islam and Fay, 2024). Freeney et al. (2024) report that women often described a need to “shed” full-time caregiver identities to reinhabit professional selves, indicating that reintegration involves identity reconstruction, not simply job search.

Across studies, successful reintegration was rarely framed as individual resilience alone. Kossek et al. (2021) argue that organizational recognition of caregiving and reform of ideal-worker norms are necessary for sustained participation. Without such changes, stigma around gaps and chronic overload can translate into ongoing psychological barriers to reintegration (Tabassum and Nayak, 2021; Kim et al., 2024). Mental health and identity operate as both outcomes and mechanisms within reintegration: resource depletion, stigma, and identity conflict reduce the capacity to return and persist, particularly where intersecting vulnerabilities limit support and amplify stress exposure (Lightman, 2024; Freeney et al., 2024; Kossek et al., 2021).

Across the four themes, the reviewed studies converge on a multilevel logic: women's reintegration trajectories are shaped by the interaction of (a) caregiving demands and household arrangements, (b) economic precarity and credential gatekeeping, (c) organizational flexibility and bias, and (d) psychological strain and identity reconstruction. Intersectional disadvantages influence not only the presence of barriers but also their intensity and durability, helping explain why similar interruptions produce divergent outcomes across women and contexts (Laster Pirtle and Wright, 2021; Abularrage et al., 2024; Islam and Fay, 2024). Counterexamples reported in the corpus, such as subsidized childcare, credential recognition reforms, and access to structured mental health supports, suggest that reintegration barriers are modifiable when institutional conditions change (Fuller and Qian, 2021; Nardon et al., 2021).

Existing scholarship has documented that crises can disrupt women's career trajectories through intensified domestic labor, constrained flexibility, and unstable employment (Bierema, 2024). However, the reviewed literature also shows that these dynamics are not crisis-bound; they reflect durable structures that shape women's career interruption and reintegration across contexts. Prior work has often treated women's interruptions as broadly gendered phenomena without a systematic account of how interruptions and reintegration unfold differently across women positioned at the intersections of race, class, immigration status, caregiving configuration, and occupational location (Carli, 2020). Using intersectionality as an analytic framework, this integrative review synthesized evidence from 45 studies to explain not only what barriers women face, but how multilevel conditions interact to produce divergent reintegration trajectories (Collins et al., 2021).

This study introduces the RISE model (Reintegration through Intersectional Structures and Equity), a framework developed directly from the thematic synthesis of the included studies. RISE is conceptually informed by multi-level perspectives such as Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological systems theory (1977) and Ferdman's multilevel inclusion framework (2014), but it makes three explicit theoretical extensions. First, RISE is reintegration-centered: it is built to explain the process by which women exit, attempt to reenter, and reintegrate, rather than presenting levels of influence as a static backdrop. Second, RISE is intersectionality-operationalized: intersectional social locations are specified as moderators of exposure, constraint, and opportunity, explaining why the same structural conditions yield different outcomes across women rather than assuming a homogeneous “women” category (Potter et al., 2019). Third, RISE is pathway-explicit: it models three parallel trajectories, career continuity, partial exit, and full exit, as alternative reintegration pathways shaped by interacting multilevel mechanisms, rather than implying a single linear sequence.

RISE conceptualizes women's career interruption and reintegration as a multistage, nonlinear process shaped by multilevel moderators that operate through recurring mechanisms identified in the findings: (a) resource constraints and substitution (time, income, support); (b) institutional gatekeeping (policies, credential recognition, promotion timelines); (c) normative penalties (ideal-worker expectations and stigma toward interruptions); and (d) identity negotiation and psychological strain (stress, guilt, professional identity threat) (Freeney et al., 2024). These mechanisms link the model's levels to the model's pathways, addressing how influences operate rather than merely listing them.

At the macro-societal level, gendered cultural expectations, inadequate childcare infrastructure, limited partner or family support, and insufficient governmental provision shape the feasibility of sustaining continuity and the likelihood of exit (Sahni et al., 2025). At the organizational level, layoffs, inflexible policy designs, rigid promotion systems, and weak emotional or managerial support shape reintegration quality and durability (Carli, 2020). At the interpersonal level, partner support and extended family or community networks can reduce or intensify caregiving burdens, moderating whether women remain attached to employment or withdraw (Leggett et al., 2020). At the individual level, mental health, self-efficacy, and professional identity negotiation shape coping capacity and willingness to attempt reentry (Júlia et al., 2024). In RISE, these levels are not additive; they interact to produce the three pathways, and intersectional social locations condition the intensity and consequences of these interactions (Potter et al., 2019).

RISE therefore distinguishes between trajectory selection (continuity vs. partial exit vs. full exit) and trajectory quality (the stability, status, and sustainability of reintegration). Structural and organizational conditions influence whether women can remain employed, but interpersonal supports and individual coping resources often determine whether reintegration is sustainable once attempted (Barigozzi et al., 2018; Pribbenow et al., 2010; Leggett et al., 2020; Júlia et al., 2024).

The reviewed studies show that some women pursued continuity by remaining employed while altering work arrangements, including part-time work or fully remote work, to reduce exposure to interruption (Funk and Warning, 2024). RISE interprets this continuity pathway as shaped by moderators such as job type, organizational norms, and support availability, which affect whether flexibility functions as protection or merely shifts burdens privately. For instance, women sometimes minimized visibility and obligations to remain “in the system,” indicating that continuity may coexist with hidden costs when ideal-worker expectations persist (Hwang, 2024). Other women pursued partial exit or full exit when workplace cultures offered limited flexibility, when care demands exceeded available supports, or when employment became economically or psychologically unsustainable (Mckinsey, 2024). These exits align with evidence that women may frame work sacrifice as compatible with caregiving identities, particularly under strong gender-role expectations (Villanueva-Moya and Expósito, 2023). Barhate et al. (2021) further explains that societal pressure and traditional gender norms can intensify identification with caregiving roles, increasing the likelihood of withdrawal when supportive reintegration structures are absent.

RISE also clarifies that reintegration difficulties are not isolated consequences that occur after exit; they reflect the reappearance of the same multilevel inequities that often produced the interruption. Women returning to work faced slower mobility, skill depreciation, wage penalties, and interruption stigma, particularly in contexts that treat uninterrupted careers as the normative standard (McWhirter and McWha-Hermann, 2021; Reitman and Schneer, 2005; Theunissen et al., 2011). Identity threats were especially pronounced for marginalized women, whose intersecting identities intensified exposure to stigma and exclusion during reentry (Cross et al., 2024). Studies show that women were penalized for not meeting ideal-worker norms and encountered negative attitudes from supervisors and colleagues that framed interruptions as reduced commitment or capability (Keplinger and Smith, 2022; Petts et al., 2020). In RISE, these dynamics are located in the reintegration phase as mechanisms, stigma, exclusion, and gatekeeping, that shape whether reentry results in continuity, constrained reintegration, or renewed exit.

RISE explains divergence by showing how similar interruptions generate different pathways depending on intersectional positioning and multilevel moderators. In academia, women attempting continuity sought to maintain research productivity while managing caregiving demands, yet organizational structures, particularly rigid tenure expectations, moderated whether continuity remained viable (Thébaud et al., 2024). By contrast, immigrant women in low-wage service roles more often experienced partial or full exit, shaped by intersecting inequities such as credential non-recognition, exclusion from benefits, and cultural caregiving norms, which constrained both feasible work options and reintegration quality (Flanagan and Lumley-Sapanski, 2025). These examples illustrate RISE's analytic value: it connects multilevel mechanisms to pathway outcomes and explains why reintegration is unevenly distributed across women.

This review demonstrates that women's career interruptions are not individual failures but predictable outcomes of structural inequalities and gendered social norms. Persistent expectations of uninterrupted, linear careers obscure how caregiving, migration, and occupational segmentation systematically constrain women's labor market participation. Societal narratives that frame interruptions as personal choice or lack of commitment therefore misattribute responsibility and reinforce stigma during reintegration. The RISE model reframes career interruption and reintegration as a collective and structural process, not a private challenge. By identifying continuity, partial exit, and full exit as parallel and legitimate pathways, RISE challenges dominant assumptions that equate success with uninterrupted participation alone. At a societal level, this framework supports broader recognition of caregiving and nonlinear trajectories as integral forms of contribution rather than deviations from the norm. Shifting public discourse, media representations, and policy debates toward this understanding is essential for reducing stigma and legitimizing diverse career pathways shaped by intersecting inequalities.

The findings highlight the need for future research to apply intersectionality as an analytic and methodological framework, not merely a descriptive lens. Studies should be designed to examine how intersecting identities, such as race, class, immigration status, caregiving configuration, and occupational location, moderate exposure to interruption, access to resources, and reintegration quality. Treating women as a homogeneous group obscures the mechanisms through which inequality is produced and sustained. Methodologically, longitudinal, qualitative, and mixed-methods designs are particularly well suited to capturing the nonlinear and cyclical nature of career interruption and reintegration identified in this review. Research that follows women across exit, interruption, and reintegration phases can illuminate how structural and organizational conditions interact with identity over time. The RISE model offers a conceptual roadmap for such studies by specifying where intersectional moderators operate, at exit, during interruption, at reentry, and throughout reintegration, and by encouraging analysis of why similar interruptions yield divergent outcomes. Future work can extend RISE by empirically testing pathway transitions and identifying conditions under which reintegration becomes sustainable rather than precarious.

For organizations, HR professionals, and policymakers, the findings indicate that generic reintegration policies are insufficient and often advantage already privileged groups. Effective interventions must be aligned with the specific mechanisms driving inequality, including caregiving overload, credential gatekeeping, interruption stigma, and psychological strain. Policies that assume a uniform return-to-work experience fail to account for how intersectional disadvantages shape both the feasibility and quality of reintegration. The RISE model can function as a diagnostic and design tool for practice. At the structural level, policies such as affordable childcare provision, social protection, and credential recognition reforms can reduce the likelihood of forced exit and deskilling. At the organizational level, flexible career pathways, caregiver-inclusive promotion criteria, and reintegration timelines that recognize skill continuity can mitigate interruption penalties. At the interpersonal level, mentorship, managerial support, and community-based resources can buffer caregiving and reintegration stress. At the individual level, access to mental health services and identity-supportive reintegration practices can improve sustainability and retention.

By mapping interventions to specific pathways, continuity, partial exit, and full exit, RISE enables organizations and policymakers to move beyond symbolic flexibility toward targeted, equity-oriented action. Embedding this multilevel approach into workforce design shifts reintegration from an individual burden to an organizational and societal responsibility, increasing the likelihood that women's returns to work are stable, meaningful, and equitable.

While this integrative review offers a comprehensive synthesis of women's career interruptions and reintegration through an intersectional lens, several limitations warrant consideration. First, although the review draws on 45 peer-reviewed studies across multiple disciplines and regions, the literature remains uneven in its representation of social identities and occupational contexts. Many studies prioritize gender while offering limited or inconsistent analysis of race, class, immigration status, disability, or caregiving configuration. As a result, some intersectional dynamics, particularly those affecting women in informal economies, Global South contexts, or non-professional occupations, may be underrepresented in the synthesis. Second, despite the review's intention to move beyond crisis-specific explanations, a substantial portion of the available literature reflects pandemic-era data. While COVID-19 functioned as an amplifier of longstanding inequities rather than their origin, the concentration of studies during this period may overemphasize acute disruptions relative to slower, cumulative processes of marginalization. Future research should therefore examine women's career interruptions and reintegration in non-crisis contexts to assess the durability and generalizability of the mechanisms identified in this review.

Third, as with all integrative reviews, the findings are constrained by the conceptual and methodological choices of the primary studies. Variation in how career interruption, reintegration, and intersectionality were defined and operationalized limited direct comparability across studies. Although the use of Torraco's integrative review methodology enabled theory development across diverse designs, the synthesis necessarily relied on authors' reported interpretations rather than raw data. Additionally, while multiple reviewers independently coded and reconciled themes, interpretive synthesis remains shaped by scholarly judgment. These limitations point to several promising directions for future research. Empirical studies should more explicitly operationalize intersectionality by designing sampling strategies and analytic approaches that examine how identities interact rather than treating them as background variables. Longitudinal and mixed-methods designs are particularly needed to trace women's career trajectories across exit, interruption, and reintegration phases, capturing how structural conditions, organizational practices, and identity negotiations evolve over time. Such designs would allow researchers to test the pathways proposed in the RISE model and to examine transitions between continuity, partial exit, and full exit.

Future scholarship should also empirically examine the moderators identified in the RISE model, including childcare policy environments, credential recognition systems, organizational flexibility norms, and access to mental health and social support. Comparative cross-national studies could further illuminate how different institutional arrangements shape reintegration quality and sustainability. Finally, intervention-focused research is needed to evaluate which organizational and policy-level practices most effectively reduce reintegration penalties and support equitable, long-term career participation among women with intersecting marginalized identities.