Male and Female Industrial Workers

Abstract

Ninety-one male and seventy-nine female Israeli industrial workers in similar technological settings were compared in terms of their job satisfaction and work role centrality. Female workers did not differ from men in their job satisfaction, when personal and technological factors were controlled. They had lower work role centrality, and this difference occurred predominantly for younger, unmarried, and Middle Eastern women. Both men and women tended to react similarly in their work role centrality to differences in the technological setting, but men did so more strongly. For both men and women, job satisfaction and work role centrality were correlated. For both genders, work role centrality was more responsive to personal characteristics and to technological conditions than was job satisfaction. The least satisfied and least work-centered women had no work place preference, and in this response differed from men. The findings for women concerning WRC are explained by means of a “socialization to industrial work” thesis, while findings regarding job satisfaction are situationally explained.