GENDER, CULTURE AND NON-FINANCIAL EMPLOYMENT COMMITMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN AND SWEDEN

ABSTRACT

The main question this paper seeks to tackle is whether men and women, as some argue, commit themselves to employment differently or for different reasons. The focus is thus on the mechanisms behind non-financial employment commitment (such as the possible effect of family situation, occupational position, and of different work-related preferences and experiences). The question is comparatively investigated in Sweden and Great Britain, where, in spite of many similarities, the existence of different societal/cultural contexts with relevance for gender and work has been suggested. The results in this paper suggest that the most important motivator for non-financial employment commitment is interesting work, which was found to have a positive effect both as a work goal and as experienced in the workplace. Although women and men in both countries displayed quite similar patterns, some country and gender differences appeared in the way occupational position and degree of education relate to this type of commitment. Higher occupational position and education where more clearly related to higher degrees of commitment for British women than for British men, while the Swedish gender pattern was reversed. In the concluding discussion, possible explanations and implications are discussed, and avenues for further research are suggested.

Keywords:

• culture
• employment commitment
• gender
• preferences
• work goals
• work rewards
• work values

Acknowledgements

The data used in this paper was made available by ASEP, Madrid and Zentralarchiv für empirische Sozialforschung, Köln. This research has received financial support from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS) and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. I thank Katarina Thompson for vital information, and Anna-Lena Almqvist, Rickard Dannel, Karin Halldén, Björn Halleröd, Jonas Höög, Lena Karlsson, Mattias Strandh, Akvile Motiejunaite, Eva Sundström, Stefan Svallfors, Ivar Söderlind, Michael Tåhlin, Rune Åberg and four anonymous ES reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

¹For a thorough presentation of the criticism see Brendan McSweeney (2002a; 2002b).

²Country differences have also been described in terms of different ‘gender arrangements’ (Pfau-Effinger 1998).

³Hakim is not the only one who has raised questions towards aspects of the ‘women friendly’ Social Democratic model. For a short review see Kremer (2005: 37–38).

⁴The master questionnaire is in English. Independent translations by research team members are compared, discussed, and decided on in a wider forum. Specific translation problems are discussed with the ISSP secretariat. No reverse translation is made.

⁵Because Sweden uses an upper cut-off point (76 years), the British sample has also been restricted to this age-range. The samples are also weighted for different sampling probabilities and for differences in sample size. None of these amendments has any important impact on results.

⁶Those in the sample who are unemployed are deleted from the analysis because of their heterogeneity in reasons for being unemployed.

⁷All British respondents completed the question concerning household composition. However, 38 men and 44 women in Sweden indicated missing values on this question. There is no obvious explanation for this except that perhaps the relatively equal missing volume for Swedish men and women suggests that the Swedish version of the question could have been perceived as more awkward to answer. Comparing Tables 1 and 2, we can see that these missing answers are reflected in the (n)s. In Table 4 the (n)s decrease even further although equally so in size between countries and in a normal pattern due to difficulties in choosing answering alternatives.