Ambivalent Sexism in the Workplace and Work Attitudes of Japanese Women in Engineering

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Abstract

Japanese economy faces the pressing need for increasing women in STEM education and occupations to avoid a chronic undersupply of scientists and engineers. However, little has been studied about the problems Japanese women in science and engineering are likely to face. The purpose of our study is to investigate the relationship between ambivalent sexist climate at work and Japanese women engineers’ work satisfaction and perceived balance between work and personal life. Drawing on the theory of ambivalent sexism, we examined how hostile and benevolent sexist climate in Japanese engineering workplace might affect women’s experiences at work. Results showed that hostile sexist climate reduced women’s work satisfaction and perceived work-life balance. Surprisingly, benevolent sexist climate increased women’s satisfaction as well as perceived balance between work and life. Our results suggest that while sexism may be composed of complimentary attitudes of hostility and benevolence, when these sexist attitudes are ingrained in workplace climate, they could impose differential constrains on women’s experiences as engineers.

Authors

• Tetsushi Fujimoto, Doshisha University

• Shiming Xia, Doshisha University Institute for Technology, Enterprise and Competitiveness (ITEC)