Workplace Control: Women and Minority Workers in America

摘要

In this paper, we examine the effects of gender and race on American workers’ workplace control. Scholarship on gender, work, and occupation states that gender and race are important predictors of the extent of control workers exercise in workplaces. Literature also posits that job satisfaction and work-family conflict also contribute substantially to workers’ workplace control. However, there exists hardly any empirical study that explores the impacts of gender, race, job satisfaction and work-family conflict altogether on their workplace control. That is what we accomplished in this study. Obtaining data from the 2008 National Study of Changing Workforce (NSCW), we ask: 1) Do women and men workers in America differ in their perceptions of workplace control? 2) Do non-white and white workers in America differ in their perceptions of workplace control? And 3) Do gender and race of the workers influence their workplace control when job satisfaction and work-family conflict are considered? Analyses are based on quantitative methods. Results show that women perceive to have less control over their workplace as compared to men. Moreover, job satisfaction is a more significant predictor of their workplace control than work-family spillover.