Much Ado about Nothing? the Impact of Gender Similarity on Employee Satisfaction and Commitment at Work

We used data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey* to examine key unanswered questions about the impact of gender similarity on employee satisfaction and commitment at work. The sample consisted of 13,891 men and 14,324 women from over 1700 workplaces across Britain. The effects of gender similarity were asymmetrical for men and women. They varied also depending on the level of analysis and work attitude involved. Our findings also showed, however, that once appropriate controls were included in the analysis, the effects involved were extremely tenuous, weaker than has generally been suggested in the literature.