Structural power and experienced job satisfactions: The empowerment paradox for women

This study related the structural power of women's occupational roles to their job values, perceptions, satisfactions, and dissatisfactions regarding power and affiliation. For 110 mostly Caucasian college-educated women in their mid-30s returning mailed questionnaires, analyses compared women in relational power, directive power, and low power jobs. Women in supervisory roles were compared with nonsupervisors. Perceived Autonomy/Challenge and Affiliation correlated with Interpersonal Power satisfaction; these and Perceived Status Mobility correlated with Interpersonal Power dissatisfaction. More women in relational power jobs reported Affiliative values and Interpersonal Power satisfactions, and fewer reported Status Mobility values and perceptions or Autonomy/Challenge satisfactions. Supervisors valued and perceived Status Mobility and Autonomy/Challenge more than did nonsupervisors, and reported more Autonomy/Challenge satisfaction. More nonsupervisors reported Interpersonal Power and Affiliative satisfactions. Thus, as women gain more structural power, they report less satisfaction from Interpersonal Power despite greater satisfaction with Autonomy/Challenge.I thank Sandra S. Tangri for initiating and continuing this longitudinal study; Sandra S. Tangri, Jo Ruggiero, and Jan Hitchcock for their collaborative work on the 1981 data collection; and Karen Chandler and Kathy MacDonald for coding of open-ended data. I appreciate Harriett Aronson's comments on previous drafts, and those of two anonymous reviewers.This research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grant No. 5-F1-MH-30#493-03; by Radcliffe Research Support Grants from The Henry A. Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College to Jo Ruggiero and to Sharon Rae Jenkins; a faculty research grant from the University of California, Santa Cruz to Sharon Rae Jenkins; and by a grant from the Mobil Foundation to Radcliffe College awarded to Sharon Rae Jenkins. Portions of these analyses were supported by NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship MH-15122-07 from the Department of Sociology and Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley. The 1967 and 1970 data sets are archived at The Henry A. Murray Research Center, Radcliffe College, Ten Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, are used with the Center's permission, and are available for secondary analysis by qualified researchers.