Work Values, Job Characteristics, and Gender

This study uses ordinal regression analysis to examine the impact of gender on work values, after controlling for various organizational variables. The analysis is based on a complete enumeration of women in a large Australian organization, together with "representative" and "matched" samples of male employees. When organizational variables are controlled, women are shown to place greater importance on working relations, men on salary, job status, and prestige in the community. Type of work has a significant impact on work values, as does the interaction of gender and type of work, thus supporting the argument that the array of occupations studied may be an important factor in explaining conflicting prior findings concerning the influence of gender on work values. While gender differences in some work values remain after a variety of organizational variables are considered, a model based on work experiences may still be appropriate for explaining such observed differences.