Gender and emotions at work: organizational rank has greater emotional benefits for men than women

Abstract

The way people feel is important for how they behave and perform in the workplace. Experiencing more positive and less negative emotions at work is often associated with greater status and power. But there may be differences in how men and women feel at work, particularly at different levels in their organizations. Using data from a nation-wide sample of working adults, we examine differences in the emotions that men and women experience at work, how gender interacts with rank to predict emotions, if the association between gender and emotions is accounted for by emotional labor demands, and if this relationship differs according to the proportion of women in an industry or organizational rank. Results demonstrate that women experience emotions associated with disvalue and strain at work more frequently than men and that organizational rank moderates the relationship between gender and several discrete emotions. Some of the effects are partially accounted for by occupational emotion demands, differing by organizational rank and/or the proportion of women employed in an industry.