Human dignity, the ability to establish a sense of self-worth and self-respect and to enjoy the respect of others, is necessary for a fully realized life. Working with dignity is a fundamental part of achieving a life well-lived, yet the workplace often poses challenging obstacles because of mismanagement or managerial abuse. Defending dignity and realizing self-respect through work are key to workers' well-being; insuring the dignity of employees is equally important for organizations as they attempt to make effective use of their human capital. In this book Randy Hodson, a sociologist of work and organizational behavior, applies ethnographic and statistical approaches to this topic, offering both a richly detailed, inside look at real examples of dignity in action, and a broader analysis of the pivotal role of dignity at work.

This article analyzes gender differences in job satisfaction among full-time workers. Why do women report equal or greater job satisfaction than men in spite of objectively inferior jobs? Analysis reveals few differences between men and women in the determinants of job satisfaction when considering job characteristics, family responsibilities, and personal expectations. Little support is found for theories that men and women: (1) focus on different aspects of work in axriving at a given level of job satisfaction; (2) differentially condition their job satisfaction according to the extent of their family responsibilities; and (3) employ different personal expectations in evaluating their jobs. Two alternative explanations for women's relatively positive job attitudes are considered. First, women may anive at a higher level of job satisfaction than men by using different comparison groups. Second, men may be more willing to verbalize dissatisfaction with work because of different socialization. The most likely explanation is that these processes operate in conjunction to produce greater reported job satisfaction among women.Women hold jobs that are, on average, inferior in many respects to those held by men (Berch 1982;Featherman and Hauser 1976;Kreps 1971). Women have been found, on average, to have less autonomy, closer supervision, and more limited promotional opportunities than men (Wolf and Fligstein 1979). Yet women's attitudes toward their jobs are often more favorable than men's (Glenn, Taylor, and Weaver. 1977;Penley and Hawkins 1980; Quinn, Staines, and McCullough 1974). Three possible explanations for this disparity are tested in this article. First, men and women may have different evaluations of jobs because they value different characteristics of work (Kanter 1977). Second, women may be more satisfied because they focus on their roles as homemakers, rather than on their roles as workers, and derive additional satisfactions from this sphere (Veroff, Douvan, and Kulka 1981). Third, men and women may have different personal expectations and use different comparison groups in arriving at evaluations of their jobs. For instance, women may compare themselves to other working women rather than to men and,

This study sheds light on the organizational foundations of sexual harassment. The authors evaluated a theoretical model underscoring the influence of worker power, workplace culture, and gender composition using unique data derived from the population of English-language, book-length workplace ethnographies. The authors used ordered and multinomial logistic regression to test whether organizational explanations vary in their capacity to predict three distinct forms of sexual harassment: patronizing, taunting, and predatory conduct. The findings reveal that organizational attributes influence not only the presence of workplace sexual harassment but also the specific form in which it manifests. The result is a more conceptually refined model of sexual harassment in organizational context. The authors conclude with a discussion of the contribution of this study to sociological explanations of sexual harassment, including linkages to more recent qualitative work underscoring its complexity, and with implications for policy in light of current workplace trends.

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The goal of "college-for-all" in the United States has been pursued in an environment of rising tuition, stagnant grant aid, and already strapped family budgets with the gap filled by college loans. College students are thus facing increasing levels of debt as they seek to develop their human capital and improve their career options. Debt is a useful resource for making needed investments. It is unique as a resource, however, because it must be repaid and can thus also increase vulnerabilities and limit options. We find that lower levels of educational debt do support college completion. However, additional educational debt beyond about $10,000 actually reduces the likelihood of college completion compared to lower levels of debt as the burden of repayment looms. Graduation likelihoods for students from the bottom 75% of the income distribution at public universities are especially influenced by debtincluding the negative effects of taking on additional debt beyond $10,000. The article concludes with a consideration of how the macro-level changes in financing societal functions influence the individual-level risks and vulnerabilities of life in a debt-based society.