Sex differences in job attribute preferences among managers and business students

Meta-analysis of 31 studies examined whether women and men in management an d business schools differ in their job attribute preferences. Findings indi cated no significant sex differences for 9 of the 21 job attribute preferen ces studied. The 12 significant sex differences indicated that men consider ed earnings and responsibility to be mon important than women did, whereas women considered prestige, challenge, task significance, variety, growth, j ob security, good coworkers, a good supervisor, and the physical work envir onment to be more important than men did. The significant sex differences w ere small, nine of them having a magnitude of .10 standard deviation units or less. Students showed larger sex differences than managers did, and chan ges over time showed that women increased their ratings of the importance o f four job attributes relative to men. The findings imply that sex differen ces in job attribute preferences are not an important determinant of women' s lower status in management.