The Importance of Work Goals and life Domains among Jews, Christians and Muslims in Israel

Abstract

Work va lu e s among the Jews in Israel have been studied for several decades, while there has been no attempt to study work values among the ethno-religious minorities in Israel. This study is based on the Meaning-of-Working (MOW) questionnaire that was conducted on a sample of employees in the Israeli labor force that included Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It examines and compares the centrality of life domains and the preferred work goals among the three religious groups in Israel. The findings reveal significant differences regarding the importance of all life domains and several of the preferred work goals among Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The findings show that the Arab Christians’ values are located mainly between those of Jews and Muslims and their means and rankings are closer to those of Jews than to those of Muslims. Regression analysis shows that demographic variables hardly explain the value differences among the members of the three religions. The findings can be explained by cultural, social, and economic factors and primarily by the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict.

Keywords

• work values
• Jews
• Christians
• Muslims
• ethnic conflict
• Israel