Race, employment, and the evaluation of work

Abstract

Tested 2 hypotheses derived from need hierarchy theory: (a) black and/or unemployed men will value material job outcomes more highly than white and/or working-class men and (b) Evaluation * Instrumentality of work and material outcomes will correlate more highly with evaluation of work for the black and/or unemployed than for the white and/or working-class samples. The evaluation and instrumentality of 15 job outcomes, working, and being unemployed, were gathered from 52 black working class and white hard-core unemployed men and 48 white working-class and black hard-core unemployed men (18-50 yrs old). Significant race, social class, and interaction effects occurred, but the direction of the differences was not exactly as predicted. Correlational analyses also did not support the hypotheses. Results are discussed in terms of experiential differences in the perception of work and unemployment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)