Assessing Job Search Intensity and Unemployment-Related Attitudes among Young Adults: Intergender Differences

The study assesses intergender differences in job search intensity and attitudes toward unemployment among a sample of 225 single, childless, young adult Israelis applying for their first job. The findings revealed considerable gender differences in reasons for rejecting potential jobs. Young women are more likely than young men to reject jobs due to adverse job conditions, family considerations, and masculine sex-typed employment. In contrast, young men showed a greater tendency to reject potential jobs for only one reason, that is, feminine sex-typed employment. In addition, women's nonfinancial commitment to work is higher than that of men, whereas the latter perceived unemployment as a most stigmatic situation. The more popular job search strategies used by both men and women were answering ads by phone and asking friends about potential jobs. No significant gender-based differences were found for job search intensity.