Research on women's career development documents that, relative to men, few women obtain high professional status and that those who do are often treated as "deviants" from culturally expected female roles, particularly if their careers are in professions traditionally occupied by men. The relation between various background variables and the status of women in five different professions was examined by using mailed questionnaires, telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews to survey 309 women physicians, lawyers, nurses, home economists and homemakers about their parental and present family, educational experiences, employment history, hobbies and other variables. Contrary to expectations raised by previous research, there were no consistent patterns of differences between women who pursued traditional careers (nursing and home economics) and those who were in non-traditional careers (physicians and lawyers). Professional women did not differ systematically from homemakers; most of the women seemed satisfied to integrate their careers with normative women's roles of wife, mother and homemaker. There were differences in the family, educational, and employment history of the women when comparisons were made among the five professional groups instead of the traditional, non-traditional and homemaking career categories. (Author/HLM)