Explaining Employment Hardiness Among Women in Israel’s Ultraorthodox Community

Abstract

Based on a sample of 319 Israeli women belonging to the ultraorthodox Jewish community, this study examined factors that facilitate and inhibit the development of employment hardiness. The term employment hardiness refers to one aspect of me as a worker and reflects a self-perception characterized by three distinguishing components, that is, openness to change at work, employment self-efficacy, and work commitment. Facilitators of employment hardiness were manifested in the women’s personal and environmental resources as well as in their work-promoting attitudes (egalitarian gender-role ideology and work centrality). Conversely, the inhibitors were manifested in the participants’ experience of daily stress. Openness to change at work and employment self-efficacy were explained primarily by workplace support and by personal resources as reflected in psychological and community empowerment, whereas work commitment was explained primarily by work-promoting attitudes as well as by the experience of daily stress. Practical recommendations are presented for organizations employing ultraorthodox women as well as for employment counselors, which aim to enhance employment hardiness among traditional women in communities undergoing modernization.