ABSTRACT
Sociological interest in work and in the interface of people and organizations emerged in Israel in the late 1960s with Bar-Yosef's work on immigrants in industry. During the 1970s, several important processes have occurred in the labor market and in the economy, and have impacted on the nature of work, on its content and its institutionalization. There has been a consistent increase in the participation of women in the labor force: from 35 percent in 1970 to 48-51 percent in 2002. Though women have penetrated previously male-typed occupations such as medicine and engineering, they also have maintained an inordinate share of low status service jobs and part-time positions. The linkages between the individual worker's role and the economic, technological and social sphere of work have been addressed consistently by Israeli sociologists. The main concepts applied to these interests have been work attractiveness, work centrality, work involvement, meaning of work, work values, and work attachment.
