Sex roles and job satisfaction in public relations

Abstract

The present professional public relations work force is composed of people from a variety of professional and academic backgrounds. Few practitioners begin their careers with a public relations position and only a handful major in public relations at either the undergraduate or graduate level. The present study, which considers a random sample of professional public relations practitioners from a six-state area in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, looks at the job progression and academic preparation separately for males and females. This study additionally looks at the overall level of satisfaction with public relations work and at six specific characteristics of public relations work for males and females. While public relations work was uniformly rated very highly by this sample, sex differences are observed for ratings of satisfaction in the level of creativity required by the job and in salary—both are rated less satisfactory by females. Additional analyses suggest that despite age and education level, female public relations professionals are paid significantly lower salaries than men.