Changes in Work Centrality and Other Life Areas in Israel

Abstract

This unique longitudinal study examines the state of work centrality and other life areas (family, leisure, community and religion) in Israel among the same individuals (n=407) over a 12-year period. A new representative sample (serving as a control group) of the Israeli labour force in 1992-93 (n=942) assists us in exploring whether the changes occurred by cohort, life course or period effect. The restudied sample maturation led to a decrease in the importance of leisure, while the importance of work, family, community and religion remained stable. The increase of work centrality between the 1980s and the 1990s was found to be influenced by period effect; there was no evidence of a life course or cohort effect on work centrality, while life course effect was found on the importance of community. In contrast to findings from other countries showing that young people attributed relatively high importance to leisure and relatively less importance to work, cohort effect regarding the latter was not observed in Israel. There, young people in the 1990s tended to view work and leisure as important as their predecessors did in the 1980s.

All in the name of work? Nonwork orientations as predictors of salary, career satisfaction, and life satisfaction

“…This might free-up time and energy resources not spent on work to focus on nonwork roles. Other studies found that work centrality decreases as retirement grows closer (Sharabi & Harpaz, 2007), which speaks for the classic view of career stage theories, in which older workers are assumed to gradually disengage from work (Super, 1990). However, meta-analytic findings showed that older workers usually report higher job involvement (Brown, 1996), higher affective organizational commitment (Meyer et al, 2002) and higher occupational commitment (Lee et al, 2000) compared with younger workers.…”

The nature of employee engagement: rethinking the employee–organization relationship

“…Abramson & Inglehart, 1995;Sharabi & Harpaz, 2007;Smola & Sutton, 2002), we controlled for these variables. Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) and type of organization (1 = private, 2 = public) were measured with dichotomous variables; age, education and seniority were reported in years.…”

Core and Peripheral Values

“…To sum up, work centrality in Israel remained stable throughout the research period and it is high compared to other developed countries (see Sharabi and Harpaz 2007b). Work values, as Weber (1958), Veblen (1953) and Child (1981) found, can lead to the decline or success of societies.…”

“…In the long run, as we have indicated, the increase in peripheral instrumental values can infl uence core values and lead to a decrease in work centrality. It is probable that the increase in the importance of leisure, as has already happened in the US, Germany, and Japan (Sharabi and Harpaz 2007b), will eventually occur in Israeli society, too, at the expense of the importance of work. Future longitudinal research on work centrality, job satisfaction, and work goals can follow the changes of core and peripheral work values in a changing Israeli society.…”

“…Relative work centrality remains stable in Israel (Sharabi and Harpaz 2007b) and in Germany (Ruiz-Quintanilla and Wilpert 1991), while in the US, it decreases to the benefi t of the family (England 1991).…”