Sex Differences in Job Attribute Preferences among Managers and Business Students

Abstract

Meta-analysis of 31 studies examined whether women and men in management and business schools differ in their job attribute preferences. Findings indicated no significant sex differences for 9 of the 21 job attribute preferences studied. The 12 significant sex differences indicated that men considered earnings and responsibility to be more important than women did, whereas women considered prestige, challenge, task significance, variety, growth, job security, good coworkers, a good supervisor, and the physical work environment to be more important than men did. The significant sex differences were small, nine of them having a magnitude of .10 standard deviation units or less. Students showed larger sex differences than managers did, and changes over time showed that women increased their ratings of the importance of four job attributes relative to men. The findings imply that sex differences in job attribute preferences are not an important determinant of women’s lower status in management.