英國男性工作熱情不如女性

Men in Britain are less engaged in their work compared with women until the final years of employment when they get a late surge of enthusiasm, according to a survey.

Men start off their careers at a much lower level of job satisfaction than women, only catching up shortly before they give up the commute and pick up their pension.

"One line of theory which I would like to look at more is that men have the Protestant ethic of going out to work to make money and not to enjoy it," Simon Easton, co-author of the report said.

Women's engagement starts high, before dipping mid-career and then bouncing back, again shortly before retirement.

The research carried out by Easton and Darren Van Laar, of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department and spin-out company QoWL, did not look into why there were changes in enthusiasm or explain the differences between the attitudes of men and women.

But the pair said the research should encourage employers to hang on to older, more experienced workers who are generally more "engaged."

It comes at a time when the British government is looking to speed up plans to raise retirement ages in a bid to rein in a record peacetime budget deficit.

Van Laar also said the findings suggested employers could increase employee retention, get higher productivity and reduce absenteeism if they found ways to increase young men's engagement and satisfaction in the workplace.

Employers could also try to better understand why women lose engagement at work mid-career, he said.

The research quizzed 4,000 people at nine large educational organizations including academics, managers and cleaners as part of wider research into the quality of working life.

一項調查顯示，英國男性的工作熱情不如女性，直到退休時他們纔會迸發出一股遲來的熱情。

男性在事業剛剛起步時對工作的滿意度遠低於女性，直到臨近退休時纔會發生些變化。

調查報告的撰寫者之一西蒙•伊斯頓說：“我想深入探討的一個說法是男性對於工作的態度帶有一種新教的觀念，他們認爲工作是爲了賺錢而不是從中獲得快樂。”

女性在剛開始工作的時候熱情高漲，但到了事業中期工作熱情會出現回落，到了退休前又會反彈。

該調查由樸次茅斯大學心理學系和附屬公司QoWL的伊斯頓和戴倫•範•拉爾共同開展，調查並未探究人們的工作熱情爲何會發生變化，也沒有解釋爲何男性和女性對於工作的態度存在差異。

但這兩位研究人員稱，調查結果說明，僱主們應該留住那些年齡較長、更有經驗的員工，因爲他們對工作更加“投入”。

目前英國政府正加速推進提高退休年齡的計劃，以遏制已創和平時期最高紀錄的鉅額赤字。

範•拉爾還稱，調查結果表明，僱主們如果能想辦法提高年輕男性員工的工作積極性及他們的工作滿意度，那麼將能提高員工存留率和工作效率，減少曠工現象。

他說，僱主們也可以去想想爲什麼女性在事業中期會喪失工作熱情。

該調查對九家大型教育機構的4000人進行了訪問，其中包括學者、管理人員和清潔工。該調查是範圍更廣的工作生活質量研究的一部分。

Vocabulary:

catch up: reach the point where one should be after a delay 趕上

spin-out:附屬的

hang on to: 抓緊，保留

rein in: 遏制

absenteeism: the fact of being frequently away from work or school, especially without good reasons （經常性無故的）曠工，曠課