Asian Association for Public Administration (AAPA)
2015 Annual Conference
http://www.aapa.or.kr
9-10 January 2015 (Friday & Saturday)
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China
The Relationships Between Work-Family Conflict, Work Passion, and Job Satisfaction: A Comparison of Chinese Female and Male Engineers[(]
Wang Xinhong[1] Yang xueyan John Weidman Zhang Lin
ABSTRACT: The current study, conducted with a representative sample of female and male engineers living in China (N = 347), focused on the relationships between work-family conflict, work passion, and job satisfaction. Regression analyses revealed that these associations differed by gender. Among female engineers, job satisfaction was significantly associated with work-family conflict and work passion. Conversely, there was a main effect of work passion and adjusted effects of work-family conflict among males. These results underscore the importance of considering work passion among engineering professionals, as well as the practical implications of these associations based on gender and characteristics of engineering profession.
Key words: Work–family Conflict; Work Passion; Job Satisfaction; Chinese Engineer; Gender
1. Introduction
The number of scientists and engineers in China has grown considerably in recent years. China represented about 13.9% of the world’s research scientists in 2002, the percentage escalated to 20% by 2007 (UNESCO, 2010). Due to their core role in global industrialization and contribution to China’s modernization, engineers’ career development and living conditions have recently become topics of research interest (Wang, 2013; Xiong, 2014). A growing number of reports from express concerns over China engineers job quality. A report from the Chinese Academy showed that among a national survey of 5,000 engineers and technical personnel, indicated that more than 80% recognized that the reputation and social status of engineering professionals were "general" or "low". Another data from the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) indicated that nearly half of the science and technology workers are willing to drop out from engineering and entering other professions (China Youth Daily, 2009a). Some analysis argued that "Escape from Engineering” is a growing trend in China. (China Youth Daily, 2009).
Women professionals comprised 43.6% in China, and the total number of female engineers is more than 10 million (The State Council, 2005; Xinhuanet.com, 2004). From a gender perspective, female engineers not only expected to adapt to engineering profession , which “technology- oriented” and “male-preference culture” in the workplace, they are also expected to take on general responsibilities at home. Thus, there might be some differences in feelings regarding work and life between female and male engineers.
Despite considerable work in the area of job satisfaction and myriad studies assessing the determinants of job satisfaction in North America and Europe, very few studies examining job satisfaction among Chinese engineers have been published. The available studies have mostly focused on specific groups, such as civil servants, accounting practitioners on the focus of organizational variables (Lau, 2002 ; Lan, 2013).
The current study attempted to fill a gap in the literature by examining job satisfaction among female and male engineers working in Chinese state–owned enterprises. The primary research question that this study will aim to answer is as follows: Are there differences in the factors that impact job satisfaction among engineers employed in Chinese state-owned enterprises based on gender? and if work passion on technology would play a unique role on the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction? This study adds to the limited body of literature examining job satisfaction among engineers in China.
1.1 Engineering as a profession: the special characteristics
The engineering profession is quite specific comparing with other profession. Engineering work is technology orientated, with more of an emphasis on professional autonomy and self-control. Additionally, engineers display a fascination with tools, machinery, and gadgets, pay more attention to satisfaction with the work itself, striving toward goals related to heightened self- and state-development (Prado, 2007).
Engineering is also a “male-dominated” profession. Existing studies have shown that men and women in this field might have different experiences and performance outcomes at both the educational and career level. From the perspective of sex-role, Rossi (1965) have argued that Engineering is a “thing-oriented” occupation, but women strongly prefer fields in which they work with people rather than things. Bailyn (1987) suggested that the close identification of technical work with masculinity creates men value it highly but a special contradiction for women. Kanter (1977), in terms of interpersonal dynamics of tokenism, offered explanations regarding the difficulties women face in with nontraditional jobs, when a woman women enters an all-male work group, her colleagues might judge her more critically and closely, fixating on her gender rather than viewing her as just another a co-worker. The culture of engineers in the workplace is also special for men, and allowing men to establish a work environment and in which technical innovation and creativity is highly valued by them, while women were limited in it (Hacker, 1983; McILwee, 1992). From the Gender roles and gender role socialization theory, structural perspectives, conflict-structural perspectives, and the culture of engineering , the population literature also discussed the less self-confidence, diminished assertiveness, inability necessary for success, lower representative, and the leaky pipeline phenomenon among women compared to men (Pell, 1996; Blickenstaff, 2005; Jacob, 2005; Cater-Steel, 2010).
1.2 Job Satisfaction and Gender Differences
Spector (1997) defined job satisfaction as the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or
dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs. There are several factors influencing job satisfaction such as individual factors (e.g., gender, stress or pressure, personal expectations, self-esteem), work factors (e.g., work type and conditions), and organizational factors (e.g., work reward, promotion opportunities, collegial communication, support from supervisors, etc.). From a gender perspective, Herzberg (1957) argued for no simple conclusion regarding gender effects on job satisfaction. Clark (1997) confirmed that no gender differences exist in overall employee job satisfaction and facets related to job satisfaction. Marson(1995) found that job satisfaction among male workers was significantly higher than among female workers. In a cross-national study on gender/job satisfaction in 21 European countries, Sousa‐Poza, Alfonso, and Sousa‐Poza （2000）found that, , men had marginally higher job satisfaction levels than women in most countries when controlling work –role inputs and outputs.
However, only a small number of studies have been reported on professional job satisfaction related gender variable in China literature. Based on China science and technology personnel, Ren (2009) reported that there were significant gender differences in salary, benefits, the job itself, and overall satisfaction, while there were no significant differences in colleague relationships and enterprise management. Also, with a sample of Chinese R & D staff members, Hui (2007) found that men had lower levels of job satisfaction than women, but the influence of gender on job satisfaction was not significant. Zhang and Sun(2011), with a sample of 6706 China female scientists, found that S & T scientists, had lower work satisfaction than teaching and medicine scientists in west China.
1.3 Work-Family Conflict and Job Satisfaction
The widely used definition for WFC is “a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressure from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p.77).” WFC is generated by work variables, and non-work variables (Byron, 2005). There are no consistent conclusions regarding the relationship between WFC and gender. Byron (2005) argued weak relationships between WFC and gender, while others observed significant gender differences in WCF (Behson, 2002; Eby et al., 2005).
In line with role theory, Work-family conflict (WFC) is an important antecedent to job satisfaction: WFC increases, job satisfaction decreases. Some researchers are focusing on the multidimensional characteristics of WFC, and exploring relationships of three different forms of WFC from both a work-to-family conflict (WIF) and family-work conflict (FIW) perspective. Bruck (2002) found that three forms of conflict (time-, strain-, and behavior-based) had different effect on job satisfaction.
Studies in China professionals have also arrived at inconsistent conclusions. Li (2012) reported that Work-family conflict and family-work conflict were negatively correlated to job satisfaction among middle school teachers. Also, Zhao (2013)with the 578 China clinical nurse sample, found that the work-family conflict have significant negative correlated to job satisfaction. Lin et al.,( 2008), with a sample of 1149 China university faculties, found that there was a significant negative correlation between WIF and job satisfaction, and WIF can predict job satisfaction , while FIW can only predict family satisfaction. It was confirmed that WFC has a significant impact on both female and male engineers, and the pattern differs association with gender (Bacharach, 1991; Post, 2009). However, no previous studies have addressed these questions for Chinese engineers.
1.4 Work Passion and Job Satisfaction
Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an activity of interest and importance, which is given sufficient time and energy. There are two types of passion—obsessive and harmonious. In the model of Vallerand & Houlfort (2003), passion can also be a source of job stress and conflict. Passion for a forced activity might result in conflict with other activities. However, some obsessive passions will not produce this kind of problem. In contrast, people with passive work enthusiasm might actually experience greater.
Passion is also an important variable for predicting work outcomes. Positive work enthusiasm can improve job satisfaction and happiness, which can reduce turnover intentions (Philippe, 2009). Zigarmi et al. (2011) refined and constructed a new definition and framework of employee work passion based on social cognitive theory and existing employee engagement literature. Work passion is defined as a “sense of well-being that results in constructive work intentions and behaviors (p. 199).” This variable can comprise four dimensions: work cognition, work affect, job well-being, and work intention.
From a wider range, positive emotions can also promote job satisfaction, and negative emotions can lower job satisfaction (Straw Ross, 1985; Watson & Clark, 1984). Some early work on satisfaction has ignored “emotional” variables and modified in their later research.(Agho, 1993). Some research in China context suggested that emotional variables might mediate the relationship between individual and organizational factors and job satisfaction. Gao et al.（2013), with a sample of 212 China high school teachers, revealed that emotional intelligence is a moderator of WFC and job satisfaction.
Engineer’s work is self-focus, technical-orientation, and self-control, thus we hypothesized that there is a great need for engineer full of passion on their technical work, and then, these type of passion might be associate with their WFC and job satisfaction. Furthermore, Due to engineering is a “male-dominated” profession, female engineers might have had different experiences from male engineers, thus we hypothesized that female engineers would have lower levels of work passion than male engineers. From here, work passion would be the driving force behind differences in job satisfaction between male and female engineers. Therefore, the current study conceptualized technical work passion variables and examined its mediating role on the relationship between WFC and job satisfaction.
2. Methods
2.1 Sample
Our representative sample consisted of 347 female and male engineers in China. All were married, had at least one child, and were employed at one of five types of state-owned industry enterprises: aviation, mechanics, power, construction, and electronics. There were 144 female participates (41.5%). Among the men, the age distribution was as follows: young engineers (i.e., below 30 years old) = 48.5%, 31–40 years old (39.6%), 41–50 years old (9.4%), and 51–60 years old (2.5%). Job title was as follows: intern engineer (45.8%), engineer (43.8%), and senior engineer (10.4%). Job title was as follows: Design/R&D (48%), production and manufacturing (34.7%), test and analysis (5.4%), and sales and marketing (11.9%). Spouse’s profession was a follows: engineer (16.8%), non-engineering professional (12.9%), and non-professional (70.3%). In terms of children, 63.1% had 1 child, and 36.9% had more than one child. Among women, the age distribution was as follows: under the age of 30 (42.7%), 31–40 (47.6%), 41–50 (9.1%), and 51–60 (0.7%). Job title was as follows: senior engineer (19.0%), engineer (35.2%), intern engineer (45.8%). Job type was as follows: Design/R&D engineer (50.4%), production and manufacturing (28.0%), test and analysis, and sales and marketing (20.4%). Women were predominantly married to engineers (50.3%), followed by non-engineering professionals (16.1%), and non-professionals (33.6%). More women had only one child (68.8%), while nearly a third had more than one child (31.2%). Gender analyses of these demographic variables revealed that the only group difference was for spouse’s job, in which more women were married to engineers than vice versa.
2.2 Procedure
Data presented in this paper were part of an initial wave of data collection, obtained from October 2012 to February 2013, from a 4-year longitudinal survey of professional engineers for the Natural Science Foundation of China in Research, “The mechanism of gender roles, engineering culture, and social change affecting technology orientations to Chinese women engineering students and early engineers.” We focused on married participants with children. A total of 620 Chinese engineers were invited to participate. Directors of human resources were asked to distribute and collect questionnaires. A total of 562 engineers responded (90.6%), which included 374 who were married with children (60.3%).
2.3 Measures
All the scales have been translated into Chinese through a back translation procedure. The researchers from Xi’an Jiaotong University had extensive experience with this procedure. Demographic variables included in this study were age, title, type of work, number of children, and spouse work status. Work-family conflict, work passion, and job satisfaction were measured with a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) in this study.
2.3.1 Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction was measured using the translated version of a 5-item scale originally developed by Greenhaus et al. (1990). Greenhaus et al. reported a Cronbach’s alpha of .83 for this scale. The five items were assessed using the following statements: “I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career,” “I am satisfied with the progress I have made towards meeting my overall career goals,” “I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my income goals,” “I am satisfied with the progress I have made towards meeting my goals for advancement,” and “I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for developing new skills.” The Cronbach’s alpha for the current sample was .80 (.83 among male engineers and .76 among female engineers).