The impact of education and family attributes on attitudes and responses to unemployment among men and women

The study deals with differences between jobless Israeli women (n = 361) an d men (n = 253) in relation to the following aspects of unemployment: Reaso ns for rejecting potential jobs, job search intensity, and responses to une mployment. The women mentioned more reasons for rejecting potential jobs, a nd their health-related responses to unemployment were more extreme than th ose of the men. However, the men tended to seek employment more intensively than did the women. Married respondents of both sexes showed the greatest tendency to reject po tential employment due to conflict with family responsibilities. Married wo men were also more likely than their male counterparts to reject potential jobs due to adverse working conditions or masculine-typed employment. Moreo ver, for both men and women the number of dependent children was related to the tendency to reject potential employment due to conflict with family re sponsibilities. The divorced-widowed respondents expressed more negative re sponses to unemployment compared with respondents the other family status g roups. Education leisure affected responses to unemployment and rejection o f jobs, although it did not have a differential impact on men and women.