Alienating working conditions, blocked opportunity and deskilling : their impact on job satisfaction

This thesis seeks to compare three theories that have been posited as determinants of job satisfaction in work and occupations literature: alienation, blocked opportunity structure, and deskilling. Numerous authors have proposed that alienating work conditions impact most on workers' job satisfaction, while others suggested that blocked opportunities for upward mobility are most detrimental in satisfaction with work. A third view posed accelerated routinization of work and subsequent deskilling in jobs as the most important factor in workers' dissatisfaction. While the focus of this thesis is on female clerical workers as representatives of an ever-growing white-collar occupational group, male blue-collar workers are employed as a comparative sample to determine differences and similarities in perception of working conditions and job satisfaction. Increased participation of women in the United States labor force during the past one-hundred years, and their segregation into white-collar, lower-level clerical positions is investigated. The concepts of alienation, blocked opportunity and deskilling are described, and a statistical analysis, based on the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey will be performed. This thesis is unique in that it compares all three theories. It seeks to establish what bothers female clerical workers the most, especially in view of the massive expansion of white-collar occupations during the past few decades, combined with introduction of new technologies in the office.