Gender differences in engineers’ burnout

The purpose of this paper is to investigate gender differences in burnout, style of coping and the availability of peer support among high‐tech engineers

A longitudinal study investigated gender differences in burnout, style of coping and the availability of peer support among high‐tech engineers, an interesting occupational group from a gender perspective both because of the masculine culture of the engineering profession and the many prejudices against women engineers. Both the masculine culture and the prejudices help explain the paucity of women engineers and predict high levels of burnout among them.

The paper's findings supported this prediction. They revealed a significant gender difference in burnout, with women engineers reporting higher levels of burnout than men. The gender differences in burnout were interpreted as related to other findings: women's greater tendency to utilize emotion‐focused coping, their smaller peer support and greater work–family conflict.

In addition to their implications for gender theory and research and for burnout theory and research, the paper's findings point to the need to encourage and support the small and unique group of women engineers.