Men in Britain are less engaged in their work compared
with women until the final years of employment when they get a
late surge of enthusiasm, according to a survey.
Men start off their careers at a much lower level of job
satisfaction than women, only catching up shortly before they
give up the commute and pick up their pension.
"One line of theory which I would like to look at more is
that men have the Protestant ethic of going out to work to
make money and not to enjoy it," Simon Easton, co-author of
the report, said.
Women's engagement starts high, before dipping
mid-career and then bouncing back, again shortly before
retirement.
The research, carried out by Easton and Darren Van Laar,
of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department
and spin-out company, QoWL, did not look into why there
were changes in enthusiasm or explain the differences between
the attitudes of men and women.
But the pair said the research should encourage employers
to hang on to older, more experienced workers who are
generally more "engaged."
The study comes at a time when the British government
is looking to speed up plans to raise retirement ages in a bid
to rein in a record peacetime budget deficit.
Van Laar said that the findings suggested employers
could increase employee retention, get higher productivity
and reduce absenteeism if they found ways to increase
young men's engagement and satisfaction in the workplace.
Employers could also try to better understand why women
lose engagement at work during mid-career, he added.
The research quizzed 4,000 people at nine large
educational organisations, including academics, managers and
cleaners, as part of wider research into the quality of
working life.