What Makes a “Good Job” Gender Role Attitudes and

Authors: Gayle Kaufman Damian White

Publish Date: 2015/06/14

Volume: 32, Issue: 4, Pages: 279-294

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Abstract

Previous studies have documented an increasing number of women entering into the paid work force yet little research has examined the gendered meanings of work for men and women Using a sample of 1986 Swedes from the 2009 Young Adult Panel Study this paper investigates the effects of gender role attitudes on job attribute preferences in order to understand what makes a “good job” for Swedish men and women Results show that men and women with more egalitarian attitudes have different perspectives than their more traditional counterparts More egalitarian women place greater importance on the possibility of advancement and being proud of their work and less importance on familyfriendly work policies On the other hand more egalitarian men place greater importance on familyfriendly work policies and less importance on having a high salary and workplace security The implications of these findings are discussed and we suggest that egalitarian women’s emphasis on advancement and pride at work combined with egalitarian men’s deemphasis on pay and emphasis on familyfriendly job attributes point to potential changes in gender norms and rolesThe Young Adult Panel Study was funded by several grants including the Swedish Council for Social Research F0138/1998 the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research 20011075 20014022 20020117 and 20070154 the Committee for Longitudinal Research at the Swedish Research Council 20023727 and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation J20000063

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