More people want less responsibility in their jobs

A recent study from the Families and Work Institute reveals that the percentage of college-educated workers who want more responsibility in their jobs has dropped in the last few years.

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According to a recent Families and Work Institute study, from 1992 to 2002, the percentage of college-educated women and men among all ages who wanted more responsibility in their jobs dropped 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

Finally! I’m smack dab in the middle of a trend!

I don’t know if the feeling of wanting to rein back some comes with age or just comes with the arrival of children, but it comes, apparently to a whole lot of us. Also, I’ve been through the experience of devoting most of my waking moments for ten years to a job that just went away — poof! — when the parent company decided to relocate it and change the business plan to something that appeared to be thought up in a drug-induced haze.

In other words, I know firsthand how futile utter devotion to a job can be in the long run. I still want to do well in my job. I still want to be on the cutting edge of things. But I don’t want to work 16 hours a day to maintain that edge. It’s just not worth it. Or maybe it’s kind of worth it, but it wouldn’t win out in a head-to-head competition with my kid, my husband, my elderly father, and the rest of the hoodlums that make up my extended family.

What do you think is driving this trend? Is it driven by the increased (both direct and indirect) demands on the worker?