The Latent Structure of Job Characteristics of Men and Women

Interesting gender differences are found in this article in the observed patterns of the job characteristics that are considered here, characteristics of men's jobs and characteristics of women's jobs. By applying the methods of latent structure analysis to analyze data on job characteristics obtained in a British national survey, the authors find that, for both the men and women employees considered here, there are underlying latent variables that can explain the observed patterns of the job characteristics that pertain to (1) payment conditions, (2) promotion prospects, and (3) autonomy at work. The article describes how the underlying latent variables associated with the men's job characteristics differ from the corresponding underlying latent variables associated with women's job characteristics.