ABSTRACT TECHNOLOGY AND WORK EXPERIENCE A STUDY OF THE INDIAN AUTOMOBILE WORKER By Baldev R. Sharma This study was designed to examine the relation between social structure, as manifested in the man-machine relationships within an industrial enterprise, and personal experience among the production and maintenance workers of an Indian automobile factory. Our main assumption was that if we knew enough about the social structure and a person's position in it, it should be possible to predict the personal experience of its members. Following similar studies already done in the United States, we used a typology of variations in technological work environment. Three types of work environments were identified, which differed from one another in terms of: (1) the degree of freedom or control over the work process, (2) the degree of skill required in the exe- cution of daily functions, and (3) whether the functions are repe- titive and monotonous or challenging. These three types of work environment yielded three corresponding types of workers - the craftsmen, machine operators, and assemblers. And these three cate- gories of workers represented, for purposes of this study, three occupational status groups — high, medium, and low - respectively. Throughout this study, occupational status thus defined was used as the main independent variable. Baldev R. Sharma The dependent variable, personal experience, was operationalized in two different ways: (1) worker's satisfaction with different as- pects of his work, and (2) certain aspects of worker's behavior. We expected that the higher the occupational status within the factory, the greater the level of satisfaction of the worker and also, the greater the worker's involvement in his activities both at work and outside the factory. The present study sought to test this main hypothesis through a series of sub-hypotheses. The following four "areas" of worker satisfaction were investi- gated: (l) the situs, (2) the firm, (3) the occupation, and (4) the job. Except for satisfaction with the firm, occupational status was found to be associated with every aspect of worker satisfaction. And the direction of association in such cases was generally in support of the main hypothesis, that is, the workers in higher status jobs (in contrast to those in lower status jobs) were generally more satis- fied with their work experience. Next, the relationship between occupational status and worker satisfaction was examined by controlling for each of the other correlates of satisfaction. Once again, except for satisfaction with the firm, the relationship between occupational status and worker satisfaction persisted. This supports the theory that personal experience is to some extent shaped by a person's posi- tion in the social structure. However, the limited application of multivariate analysis revealed that the original relationship between occupational status and worker satisfaction was not always "independent" of other factors. We were able to "specify" some of the conditions under which occupational status was most relevant in affecting worker satisfaction. Baldev R. Sharma The second variant of "personal experience" consisted of cer- tain aspects of worker behavior. The following four "areas" of worker behavior were selected for investigation: (1) attendance at work, (2) union involvement, (3) neighborhood involvement, and (4) community involvement. Of these four areas, union involvement (as measured through participation in union activities) was the only variable found to be related to occupational status. But even in that one case the relationship disappeared completely when con- trolled for either wages or seniority. The results of multivariate analysis in this case revealed that under none of the circumstances examined was worker behavior in the selected areas a function of occupational status within the factory. In addition to the theoretical considerations as outlined above, the findings of this study were analyzed in terms of their implications for (1) the theory of labor force commitment and (2) the changing stratification system of modern Indian society. In both of those areas, our findings call into question the prevailing theories which emphasize the importance of traditional cultural patterns that, allegedly, impede the development of a committed industrial work force in developing societies. TECHNOLOGY AND WORK EXPERIENCE: A STUDY OF THE INDIAN AUTOMOBILE WORKER BY Baldev Ré>Sharma A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Sociology 1967 I .1, —‘—-_-fl' . U U . 95:.» A f? ’7’ 7/ 3’ I 1)”)- [25% " [/7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation signalizes the completion of seven years of graduate study in the United States of America, interrupted once by a year of field work in India. It is indeed an appropriate occasion to acknowledge my debt to the many people and agencies without whose help I would not be writing these lines today. My greatest debt is to my wife, Raj, who, in the best Indian tradition, has sacrificed much to make our dream come true. Rear— ing four sons is a trying experience under the best of circumstances, but how much more so when this, along with many others, becomes the responsibility of a woman whose husband is away for seven years! I salute her courage and dedication. I am grateful, also, to my parents for their understanding and support throughout this long period of formal academic training. To my friends and colleagues at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, India I shall always be indebted for the initial in— spiration and subsequent help in many ways. The generous moral and material assistance of Mr. Harikishandas Aggarwal, Devidayal Cables, Bombay and the late Mr. I. S. Sachar, Sachar Educational Foundation, Delhi.made possible my arrival at Oberlin College in 1960. I owe special thanks to my first teachers of sociology at Oberlin College, Professors Joseph W. Elder, Kiyoshi Ikeda, Richard R. Myers, George E. Simpson, and J. Milton Yinger. They shall long ii be remembered as representing the very best of American liberal education. I am grateful to the faculties of sociology and anthropology at Michigan State University, especially to the members of my guid- ance committee, Professors William H. Form (chairman), James B. McKeeT: Charles P. Loomis, and John Useem, for their advice and stimulation through the years. It was indeed an honor and a privilege to work with and to receive academic apprenticeship from scholars such as these. The debt I owe to Professor Form is more than words can express. Throughout my graduate study at Michigan State University, Professor Form provided invaluable direction to, and steady support for my intellectual development. His unrelenting confidence in me and his high standards of scholarship shall always be a constant source of inspiration. The Asian Studies Center and the Center for International Pro- grams at Michigan State University deserve my sincere thanks for their generous financial support, which enabled me to go to India and to pay for the research expenses. I wish to acknowledge my deep appreciation to the Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations, New Delhi for their support of this research. While the Michigan State University had provided for my travel to India and back, in addition to other expenses for research, the success of the project depended to a large extent upon the generous support of the Shri Ram Centre through a senior research fellowship for the duration of my field work in Bombay. iii Last but not least I am most grateful to the management of Premier Automobiles Limited, Bombay, the union leadership, and each of the 290 workers interviewed for their full cooperation in this research. ‘iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . .... . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . LIST OF TABLES O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O I LIST OF FIGURES O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 LIST OF APPENDICES o o o o o o o o o o o o o I o o o o o o 0 Chapter I 0 INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 I O 0 Modern Technology and Work Experience . . . . . . Review of Research Literature . . . . . . . . . . II 0 THE PROBLEM O O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 O 0 Occupational Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Independent Variables . . . . . . . . Dependent Variables and Hypotheses . . . . . . . Sample Design and Data Collection . . . . . . . . III . THE FACTORY The Indian Automobile Industry . . . . . . . . Background and Other Demographic Characteristics Interrelationships of Background and Other Demograhpic Characteristics . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IVS OCCUPATIONAL STATUS AND WORKER SATISFACTION . . . . Situs Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Satisfaction with the Company . . . . . . . . . . Satisfaction with the Occupation . . . . . . . . Occupational Aspirations . . . . . . . . . . . . Job Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page ii vii xi xii .L\ 14 15 23 25 34 39 39 45 50 57 61 62 79 93 106 123 Chapter V. OCCUPATIONAL STATUS AND WORKER BEHAVIOR . . . . . Attendance at Work . . . . . . . . . . . Union Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neighborhood Involvement . . . . . . . . . . Community Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . VI. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . Summary of Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations of the Study . . . . . . . . . . Occupational Status and the Traditional Caste Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of the Findings . . . . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY 0 o. c o. o g ‘ o 0‘ o o_ o g g g a. .1 o q o o c APPENDICES ‘ vi Page 132 132 144 170 176 184 184 191 195 200 206 216 Table 10. ll. 12. 13. 14. LIST OF TABLES Interrelationships among independent variables . . . Inter-item associations for index of situs satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational status and situs satisfaction . . . . . Association between situs satisfaction and some of the independent variables . . . . . . . . . . . Interrelationships among situs satisfaction and other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Association between occupational status and situs satisfaction with wages held constant . . . . . Occupational status and situs satisfaction, controlled for occupational background . . . . . . . . . . Occupational status and situs satisfaction by educational level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational status and situs satisfaction, according to rural-urban background of worker . . . . . . Occupational status according to degree of satisfaction with the company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Association between satisfaction with the company and some independent variables . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational status and satisfaction with the company with wages held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational status and satisfaction with the company, controlled for age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Association between occupational status and satisfaction with the company with caste held constant . . . vii Page 51 65 66 67 68 7O 71 72 73 81 82 84 85 86 Table Page 15. Occupational status and satisfaction with the company, according to seniority of worker . . . . . 87 16. Occupational status and satisfaction with the company with number of children held constant . . . 88 17. Occupational status by satisfaction with the occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 18. Association between occupational status and satis- faction with the occupation (revised) . . . . . . . 94 19. Association between occupational satisfaction and some independent variables . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 20. Interrelationships among occupational satisfaction and some other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 21. Occupational status and occupational satisfaction with age held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 22. Association between occupational status and occupa- tional satisfaction, according to number of Children 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 99 23. Occupational status by occupational satisfaction, controlling for caste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 24. Occupational status and occupational satisfaction, according to level of education of worker . . . . .101 25. Characteristics of the workers among whom occupa- tional status is inversely related to satisfaction with the present occupation . . . . . . . . . . . .103 26. Occupational status and occupational aspirations . . .109 27. Association between occupational aspirations and some other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 28. Interrelationships among occupational aspirations and some other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . .11: 29. Occupational status by occupational aspirations with wages held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 30. Occupational status and occupational aspirations, according to age of worker . . . . . . . . . . . .114 viii Table Page 31. Association between occupational status and occupational aspirations with religion held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 32. Occupational status by occupational aspirations, according to seniority of worker . . . . . . . . 116 33. Association between occupational status and occupa- tional aspirations by educational level . . . . . 117 34. Occupational status and occupational aspirations by rural—urban background . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 35. Association between occupational status and job satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 36. Association between job satisfaction and some other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 37. Interrelationships among job satisfaction and some other variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 38. Occupational status and job satisfaction with wages held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 39. . Association between occupational status and job satisfaction, according to age of worker . . . . 128 40. Occupational status by job satisfaction, controlled for seniority I I O O O I O I O O O O O O O C O O 129 41. Association between occupational status and attendance at work I O O O O O O I O O O O O I O O O O O 0 I 134 42. Rural-urban background and attendance at work . . . . 134 43. Occupational status and attendance at work, according to rural—urban background of worker . . . . . . . 137 44. Association between occupational status and attendance at work with religion held constant . . . . . . . 142 45. Occupational status and union interest . . . . . . . 146 46. Association between union interest and some independent variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 47. Interrelationships among the correlates of union interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 ix Table Page 48. Occupational status and union interest by religion 0 f worker I O O C O O I O O O O O O O C O O O O O 1 4 9 49. Association between occupational status and union interest, according to education of worker . . . 150 50. Occupational status and union interest by occupa— tional background of worker . . . . . . . . . . . 151 51. Association between occupational status and union interest, according to marital status of worker . 152 52. Education and union interest (for married workers only) . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 53. Occupational status and union participation . . . . . 161 54. Association between union participation and its correlates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 55. Interrelationships among the correlates of union participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 56. Occupational status and union participation with wages held constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 57. Occupational status and union participation, accord- ing to seniority of worker . . . . . . . . . . . 164 58. Association between occupational status and union participation with marital status held constant . 165 59. Association between occupational status and neighborhood involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 60. Occupational status and neighborhood involvement by occupational background of worker . . . . . . 173 61. Association between occupational background and neighborhood involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 62. Occupational status and community involvement . . . . 177 63. Association between occupational status and community involvement by educational level of worker . . . 179 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. A typology of variations in technological work environment within an industrial enterprise . . . 18 2. The sample size in relation to the population and the total strength of industrial workers in the factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 xi LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page A Comparison of certain characteristics of the sample workers vis-a-vis total factory population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 B Sample data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 C Statistical profiles of the three occupational status groups along several dimensions . . . . 221 xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This study aims to explore and specify the relation between technological work environment and certain related attitudes and behavior patterns among the industrial workers of a non—western, developing society. The industrial unit selected for study is an automobile factory in Bombay, India. The study is a part of a larger research project undertaken by Professor William H. Form to investigate the orientations of automobile workers toward their jobs, their union, and their community in different socio-cultural settings. Chapter I spells out the theoretical basis of the present study and contains, in addition, a brief review of research on the subject. The review of pertinent research literature is continued in Chapter II, which also specifies the problem under investigation, gives operational definitions of the major concepts, and lists the hypotheses to be tested. Analysis of data will be presented in the following three chapters. Chapter III describes the factory and the characteristics of its work force, while the testing of hypotheses will be taken up in Chapters IV and V. Finally, Chapter VI concludes by summarizing the findings, interpreting them in light of related research literature, and making suggestions for further research. Our main theoretical orientation follows the Industrial Man '5 ‘\ -.,, ~a thesis as proposed by Inkeles.1 Along with him we assume that the technological aspects of industrial work are critical in determin— ing attitudes and behavior of industrial workers. We propose to test the general hypothesis that the patterns of satisfaction which the Indian automobile worker derives from his occupational activity, and the degree of his involvement in various aspects of social and occupational life, are positively related to his technological work E! environment, as manifested in his occupational status. The assumption that certain social-phychological phenomena can be predicted on the basis of a knowledge of the social struc— U ture is derived from, among others, Durkheim.2 But it would perhaps be more accurate to say that most classical theorists who were con- cerned with the social order maintained a similar "structuralist" position.3 During the last decade or so, many writers have shown that a wide range of social—psychological phenomena can be accounted for by certain structural features of the society. Lipset and Bendix, for example, found that occupational aspirations were correlated with 4 industrial maturity of a society. Kornhauser and others suggest 1. Alex Inkeles, fiIndustrial Man: The Relation of Status to Experi- ence, Perception, and Value," American Journal of Sociology, 66 (1960), pp. 1-31. 2. Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, Glencoe, III,: The Free Press, 1950. Also, his Suicide, Glencoe, III.: The Free Press, 1951 and The Division of Labour in Society, Glen- coe, III.: The Free Press, 1947. 3. While Durkheim analyzed "anomie" in terms of social—structural variables, Marx and weber followed essentially the same ap- proach in their respective studies of "alienation" and "bureaucracy." 4. Seymour M. Lipset and Reinhard Bendix, Social Mobility in Indus— trial Society, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959. 3 (as did Durkheim long before) that alienation is correlated with some structural factors.5 Furthermore, considerable evidence exists to show that level of occupation has a clear-cut effect on job at— titudes of workers. In a detailed review of several studies, Blauner concludes that the higher the occupational level, the greater the worker's satisfaction with his job.6 Inkeles has shown that the re- lationship between level of occupation and job satisfaction also holds at the cross-national level.7 And Inkeles' thesis is supported, at least in a general way, by Lambert who reports that "in the Indian factories studied there is a genuine but mild positive relationship between membership in the broad occupational classes and degree of favorableness toward the factory and its management."8 The findings of several other studies generally support the theoretical per— spective outlined above.9 5. William Kornhauser (ed.), Industrial Conflict, New York: McGraw— Hill, 1954. 6. Robert Blauner, "WOrk Satisfaction and Industrial Trends in Modern Society," in W. Galenson and S. M. Lipset (eds.), Labor and Trade Unionism, New York: John Wiley, 1960. Also see: Frederick Herzberg et 31., Job Attitudes: Review of Research and Opinion, Pittsburgh, Pa.: Psychological Service of Pitts- burgh, 1957; Gladys L. Palmer, "Attitudes Toward Work in an Industrial Community," American Journal of Sociology, 63 (July, 1957). PP. 17-26. 7. Inkeles, op. cit. 8. Richard D. Lambert, WOrkers,_Factories,_and Social Change in India, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 211—212. 9. See for example: Richard Centers, "Motivational Aspects of Occu- pational Stratification," Journal of Social Psychology, 28 (1948) pp. 187-217; William H. Form and James A. Geschwender, "Social Reference Basis of Job Satisfaction: The Case of Manual Workers," American Sociological Review, 27 (April, 1962), pp. 228-237; Aaron Levenstein, Why People Work, New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1962; and Nancy C. Morse and Robert S. Weiss, "The Function and Meaning of WOrk and the Job," American Sociological Review, 20 (April, 1955), pp. 191-198. 4 Modern Technology and Work Experience One of the outstanding structural features of contemporary Western societies is "industrialism" and its most characteristic organizational form is the "factory." Both industrialism and the factory system are becoming pervasive almost universally. As Kahl points out, "Since the Second WOrld War the rate of indus— trialization has increased as people in previously isolated or tradition-bound societies have entered the main stream of world history to demand the material benefits of modern technology."10 Now, the introduction of factory system as the new mode of produc— tion is said to have profound repercussions on the rest of culture.11 This study examines the impact of technology on work experience of modern industrial workers in India. The relations of the modern industrial worker to his work environment stand in sharp contrast to the craft occupations or farming in the pre—industrial era. The factory worker becomes what Marx called a "wage slave." He no longer owns the product of his labor nor the means of production. Moreover, the trend toward specialization (or, division of labor as it is often called) tends progressively to build skill into the machines, thereby reducing the possibility of worker control or initiative in the production process. Finally, the modern factory worker works, typically, in a big factory which is run by a bureaucratic administration with 10. Joseph A. Kahl, "Some Social Concomitants of Industrialization and Urbanization," Human Organization, 18, 2, pp. 53~74. 11. Ibid. Also see: Frederick Herzberg et al., The Motivation to Work, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1959, Chapter 13. formal rules. Marx saw in this state of affairs the seeds of wide— spread alienation among modern industrial workers.12 While Marx attributed work alienation to an employee's re— lationship to the owners of the means of production, and thus linked alienation to the capitalist order, more recent writers such as 13 and Blauner14 have emphasized the man-machine relationship Feuer as the more critical source of work alienation. Feuer points out, for example, that "alienation of man from the machine, which stands against him, imposing its rhythm on him so that he is a satellite to its motions, is something which is common to all industrial so- cieties, whether they be capitalist or socialist."15 With the com- ing of automation and other continuous-process production methods, some writers suggest that work alienation may be abating, at least in automated industries, and that a curvilinear relationship seems to exist between work alienation and advance in technology.16 Since it is not the main objective of this study to analyze work alienation(or, its opposite "job satisfaction") per se, we will examine this phenomenon only in relation to a few selected variables. And since technological work environment is our main 12. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d. 13. Lewis Feuer, "What is Alienation? The Career of a Concept," in Maurice Stein and Arthur Vinich (eds.), Sociology on Trial, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963. 14. Robert Blauner, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory WOrker and His Industry, Chicago,University of Chicago Press, 1964. 15. Feuer, Op. cit., p. 138. 16. Blauner (1964), op, cit. Also see: William Faunce, "Automation and the Division of Labor," Social Problems, 13 (Fall, independent variable, the discussion thus far has been confined to the writings dealing with the relationship between technology and work experience. A reference to some of the other perspec- tives and studies of job satisfaction will be made at a later stage. We prefer not to use the term "alienation" to refer to nega- tive attitudes of workers toward their work experience. Instead, we will use the more conventional terms like "satisfaction" and "dissatisfaction," for the latter are easily understood and are also free from the ideological bias associated with the concept of alienation.17 A brief mention of the concept of alienation seem- ed appropriate because some writers (e.g., Blauner) have used it more or less interchangeably with worker dissatisfaction.18 Job satisfaction is typically a function of the mechanics of modernization, for the jobs themselves are a function of the modern market system. In the pre-industrial (traditional) society, dis— tinctions between work and non-work are often blurred. The occu- pational life of the traditional handicraft worker, for example, was seldom at the mercy of the purely economic forces. Such a worker was protected by such institutional arrangements as the ex— tended family, the tribe, the caste, or the occupational guild. The process of industrialization, among other things, leads to divi- sion of labor among the various institutional patterns of the society. 17. Blauner (1964), op. cit., p. 4. Blauner says that this hypo— thesis has inspired fruitless polemics more often than seri- ous scientific research. 18. Mills maintains that equating "alienation" with job dissatis- faction is a distortion of Marx's conceptualization. See C. wright Mills, The Marxists, New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1962, p. 86. . ..’\ n The shift of the traditional handicraft artisan to the modern factory creates several problems, including loss of security. In the industrial community, as noted by Kerr and his associates, new relationships based upon employment and occupation come to replace the larger family and village attachments. In this study we pro— pose to examine whether the mechanisms which give rise to job dis- satisfaction in advanced industrial societies: (1) also arise in the urban-industrial context of a developing society, (2) are the same, and (3) account for the same internal variations. Yet, this is not a direct comparative study, although its findings will be analyzed by frequent comparisons with related research based on the experience of the industrial worker in the West. Review of Research Literature The number of studies dealing with job attitudes has become so large that the newcomer to the field may be appalled by it. Most of the research in this area, however, has been of an applied nature, centered around organizational processes that contribute 19 But in spite of the abundance of to the worker satisfaction. research the concept of job satisfaction, with its multiplicity of connotations and implications, still poses one of the most diffi- cult problems for a student of industrial relations. Published studies differ in terms of their purpose (e.g., solution of speci— fic problems or search for principles), Eggpp; (e.g., study of a particular work organization, an industry, an entire occupation, 19. For reviews of some of the studies of job satisfaction, see Herzberg et a1. (1957), op. cit. and Thomas B. Scott et al, A Definition of Work Adiustment, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center, 1960. or inter-industry comparisons), and method (e.g., paper-and-pencil research or depth interviews). In the face of such a variety of research material, therefore, only a few representative studies will be discussed here. Elton Mayo, often regarded as the founder of modern industrial sociology in the United States, was one of the first to interest himself in the problem of repetitive and mechanically-paced work in the modern factory. In one of his early essays, "What is Mono- tony?" Mayo talks of boredom caused by repetition, or "doing the same thing over and over again," in a typical industrial work en- vironment.20 Mayo's subsequent studies, including the famous " emphasized the importance of work content "Hawthorn experiment, in relation to fatigue. The more recent studies by Walker and several others showed that an equally important factor contributing ' or the coercion to fatigue in man—machine relationship is "pacing,' of human rhythm into machine regularities together with a matching of machine speeds.21 Whyte's study of a wooden toys factory demon- strated, among other things, the importance of worker control over pacing.22 Whyte found that when the production operators themselves were allowed, instead of by the engineers, to regulate the speed of the moving hooks, their rate of production increased by thirty to fifty percent. Similarly, certain studies in English factories have shown that extreme repetitiveness reduced productivity of the 20. Elton Mayo, The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1933, Chapter II. 21. Charles R. Walker, Modern Technology and Civilization, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962, p. 73. 22. William F. Whyte, Money and Motivation, New York: Harper and Bros., 1955, pp. 90-96. I" 1" 9 industrial worker.23 It seems that the few works that deal with the impact of technological work environment on work experience are mostly concerned with the problem of repetitive and paced work. The relatively high emphasis on studies of repetitive and mechanically-paced work in recent years can be seen from a large number of studies of workers on the automobile assembly line. As an English writer has charged, the studies of workers in car assembly plants have outnumbered those of any comparable industrial 24 During the short period of one decade, or occupational group. 1952-1961, at least seven book-length monographs based on automo— bile assembly plants have appeared in the United States and Great Britain.25 Of these several studies, Automobile Workers and the American Dream (by Chinoy) and The Man on the Assemblerine (by Walker and finest) are probably the best known and widely cited monographs. The findings of the most of these studies have shown a relatively high degree of consistency. The assembly line worker is described as the dissatisfied worker and his dissatisfaction is attributed primarily to the technological work environment created by the "line". Work on the assembly line is characterized by such features as "routine, repetitive,‘ and "mechanically paced." Now, many of these features of work are to be found in other mass— production industries, but it is argued that they appear with a unique emphasis when applied to the automobile assembler's job. 23. Walker, op, cit., p. 104. 24. John H. Goldthorpe, "Attitudes and Behavior of Car Assembly WOrkers: A Deviant Case and a Theoretical Critique," The British Journal of Sociology, 17 (September, 1966), pp. 227-244. 25. Ibid., p. 241 (footnote). 10 The above findings about work on the assembly line have been questioned by at least two writers. In a study of automobile work- ers in suburbia, Berger criticized Chinoy and others for imputing 26 On the other hand, a recent arti— alienation to manual workers. cle by Goldthorpe questions the very basis of the argument that assembly—line technology has much to do with work experience. He contends that far more important than technology are.workers' orientations (or, wants and expectations relative to work), which are said to mediate between the objective features of the work situation and their actual experience of that situation.27 Argyris argued that the lack of control by employees over their work environment is one of the characteristics of formal organizations, which are said to be inconsistent with the needs of emotionally healthy individuals.28 This inconsistency, Argyris maintains, results in job dissatisfaction as well as certain per- sonality problems. Sayles' study of 300 industrial work groups in 30 plants shows, among other things, that differences in the structure of such groups are significant variables which shape the collective behavior of the members. The social system shaped by the technological process is said to be a "basic and continuing determinant of work group attitudes and actions."29 26. Bennett M. Berger, WOrkingéC1ass Suburb: A Study of Auto WOrkr ers in Suburbia, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960. 27. Goldthorpe, op. cit. 28. Chris Argyris, Personality and Organization, New York: Harper, 1957. 29- Leonard R. Sayles, Behavioo of Industrial Wbrk Groups, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1958, p. 93. 11 In a recent study, Blauner maintains that technology, divi— sion of labor, social organization, and economic structure vary from industry to industry, and that a unique constellation of these four variables in an individual industry accounts for a work envi— ronment aht is somewhat special in its impact on the blue-collar labor force.30 Using the following typology, Blauner compared work“ ers from four different industries and found striking contrasts in the balance of alienation and freedom: craft technology (as in printing industry) machine—tending technology (as in textile industry) assembly—line technology (as in automobile industry) continuous-process technology (as in chemical industry) To some extent the present study begins where Blauner left off. In his final footnote, at the very end of the book, Blauner cautions the reader against treating an entire industry as an undifferentiated unit:31 "One must guard against the weakness of this approach as well as stress its advantages. Just as industrial sociology fosters an undifferentiated view of industry in general and tends to ignore differences among in- dustries, the "sociology of industries" exaggerates the unity of an individual industry and necessarily underplays the important variations within that indus- try, as well as its similarities to other industries. Our understanding of the conditions and causes of alienation in manual work would also be furthered by an intensive investigation which focused on the varia- tions in worker freedoms and job attitudes among the firms within any one of the four industries I have considered." This study aims to focus on the variations in technological work environment along esentially the same lines as those suggested by Blauner, but within one industry. Logically the relationships 30. Blauner (1964), op. cit., pp. 10—11. 31. Ibid,, p. 187. See also: p. 7 where the author admits: "Of course, no industry has a completely homogeneous technology." 12 that Blauner found between the industries should also hold within any one of them, providing of course the existence of the neces- sary conditions is established. We decided to study an Indian automobile plant because it promised to meet that proviso. The three-fold classification of work environment used in this study closely resembles that used by Blauner. This classification is also similar to that used by Touraine in his study of the Renault automobile plant,32 33 and the one used by Warner and Low. Finally, a few words are in order regarding the choice of an Indian factory for purposes of testing the Industrial Man hypo— thesis outlined above. Insofar as the immediate aim of the study is to test a sociological hypothesis derived from one society in another, it may be considered as one of the growing number of studies in comparative sociology. Yet, this is not a systematic comparative study in that the Indian data will not be directly compared to other data. The findings of this study will of course be discussed, in a general way, in the light of the empirical evi- dence obtained through some of the similar studies conducted in the West. Since this is perhaps as much a case study as a comparative one, we are sensitive to the role of several aspects of the tra— ditional Indian society, which might impinge upon the process of social change being studied. We have, therefore, included in the research design, among others, such factors as religion, caste, 32. Alain Touraine in Walker, op. cit., p. 427. 33. W. Lloyd Warner and J. 0. Low, The Social System of the Modern Factory, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1947, p. 86. 13 rural-urban background, and previous occupational experience. In fact, one of the considerations in favor of choosing India as the research site for the study was the fact that this society provides a sharp contrast to an industrialized (Western) society not only in the level of industrial development but also in terms of its social and cultural organization. As we proceed to analyze the data, we will try to be sensitive to the role of the tradi- tional Indian culture. If it is found, for example, that the work experience of the Indian employee is better explained by caste status rather than occupational status, or by religion and rural— urban background rather than wages and seniority, we will have reason to question the universality of the Industrial Man thesis. CHAPTER II THE PROBLEM The main task of the present study is to examine and specify the relationship between technological work environment and cer- tain attitudes and behavior patterns among the Indian automobile workers. To do this we must: (1) identify within the plant dif— ferent types of work environment that are sufficiently distinct from one another in terms of technology, (2) ascertain differences in the level of worker satisfaction, and (3) measure actual be- havior of workers in some work-related and non-work situations. As will be shown in the subsequent discussion, technological work environment determines to a large extent the occupational status of the modern industrial worker. Besides wages, the typi— cal rewards that are differentially distributed among factory work— ers include such things as freedom from strict supervision, free— dom of physical movement, an opportunity to use discretion in the execution of work, and the like. It is well known that skilled craftsmen in any factory usually get a lion's share of the above rewards. In the status system of the modern factory, therefore, the skilled craftsmen stand at the very top of the hierarchy and the machine operators and the unskilled, routine manual workers follow in order. Usually, any movement up the factory status lad- der requires, among other things, longer periods of occupational socialization which includes such things as knowledge of certain skills, longer seniority and preferably (though not necessarily) l4 {A 15 more education. In view of these considerations, we would expect that the higher the occupational status, the greater will be the level of worker satisfaction. Also, we expect that occupational status is positively related to worker's involvement with the af- fairs of his union, community and the neighborhood. These are our main guiding hypotheses to be specified later. Occgpational Status Studies of Blauner, Chinoy, Faunce, Inkeles, Walker, Walker and Guest, WOodward, Wyatt, and Marriott, and Zweig clearly show that the way the industrial workers feel about their work experi- ence is affected by their technological work environment.1 A ques- tion may then be asked: why and in what way does technology shape the work experience of these workers? The following discussion attempts to answer this question. For most of the writers under discussion, "technology" means more than just physical objects. Blauner, for example, defines technology as "the complex of physical objects and technical opera- tions (both manual and machine) regularly employed in turning out the goods and services produced by an industry."2 This definition parallels that used by Walker in Modern Technology and Civiligation.3 Following this definition, therefore, the technology of an automo- bile assembly line includes not only the moving conveyor and all 1. Several of these studies have been referred to in the previous chapter. 2. Robert Blauner, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory WOrker and His Industry, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, p. 6. 3. Charles R. Walker, Modern Technology and Civilization, New York: McGraweHill, 1962, p. 2. 16 other "hardware," but also the mass production methods devised by management and practiced by workers to assemble an automobile. In such a definition, scientific management and other kinds of engineering rules which impinge on people are included under the term "technology." Blauner has shown, through his inter-industry comparison, that it is hazardous to generalize about industrial workers as a homogeneous category. But Deutsch's study of an American auto- mobile plant reveals that it is equally hazardous to treat (as Blauner does) industrial workers of any one industry as a homo- genous group.4 Using essentially Blauner's typology of technologi- cal work environment, Deutsch found marked differences in workers' job attitudes and certain behavior patterns within the same plant. Although these two studies differ in their scope, both agree on one point: variations in technological work environment affect the patterns of personal response of industrial workers. Blauner provides the following rationale for the relationship between tech- nology and work experience:5 1. Technology, more than any other factor, deter- mines the nature of the job tasks performed by blue-collar employees. 2. The technological setting limits or expands the amount of freedom and control that a worker exercises in his immediate work environment. 4. Steven E. Deutsch, "Skill Level, Social Involvement and Ideology: A Study of Automobile WOrkers." Unpublished Ph.D. Disserta- tion, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1964. In fairness to Blauner it must be pointed out that (as already indicated in the previous chapter) he was fully conscious of intra—industry differences. Apparently, the broad scope of his study prevented him from paying more at— tention to internal variations within each industry. 5. Blauner (1964), op. cit., p. 8. - ~ \. _ 1 - s . l . . . 0 I . , . 1 o ‘ ~ \ '\ D , \ \ ' 1 . . ' . . . ~ ,‘ n . o m , , < - r f. . ‘ , u u. , , . . - . l .‘ a ' .. . I . . - . . \ r r . - 7 . - I . \ . ' v ~ o 1 ‘ . a . '- t I . J . . . t - o' - o . t ‘. I 4 ‘ - v " , , .' v - . . a . o ‘ J ‘ ‘ 1 u - - .. .. \ a . r . ., 0 °- . l7 3. The machine system largely decides whether the worker can become directly engrossed in the ac— tivity of work or whether detachment and mono- tony more commonly result. 4. Since technological considerations often deter— mine the size of an industrial plant, they mark— edly influence the social atmosphere and degree of cohesion among the work force. Technology also structures the existence and form of work groups, in this way influencing cohesion. 5. Technology largely determines the occupational structure and skill distribution within an enter— prise, the basic factors in advancement opportuni- ties, and normative integration. After Warner and Low, Touraine, Blauner, and Deutsch we pro- pose to examine the variations in technological work environment in terms of the three-fold classification shown in Fig. 1. Although it is implicit in the classification proposed here, the term "skill" has been deliberately avoided in referring to the three types of work environment. Skill, as Warner and Low point out, is an attri— bute of a person, although by convention the word is also applied to jobs.6 The idea of skill involves ability, proficiency, or ex- pertness, which are attributes of an individual.7 Hence, the use of the term "skill" as an attribute of a job may be confusing. And the possibility of such confusion is enhanced when the term is applied to a broad group of work activities as proposed in the present study. There is yet another reason for not using skill in referring to the various technological work environments. For a variety of reasons, there is no necessary correspondence between 6. W. Lloyd Warner and J. 0. Low, The Social System of the Modern Factory, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1947, p. 73. 7. Webster's New world Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition, Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1966, p. 1366. La -- 18 Amuoxuoz Hosamz oawusomv Annououmno oafisoozv Aaoamummuov hvsum uaomoun I I Boa asaooz swam may you oomomoum mDHoum hwoaoanooH wmoooum mwoaocnooa Imposcwuaou ocHAI%Hnaomm< mwoaocsooh mafisomz thHoanooH ammuo Aqomav Honsmam uuonom coaumEOus< nos£uoz ooHHmeab up modfisomz mo mafiooom coamummuo ooHHme 0 women Aaoaufimamuuv m oomsm Aoaov ¢ ommsm Ammmav ocflmuaoe aHoH< 25m 30.5 33m .53sz SHE...“ fine I I mafiaoomm uoohno wafiumuomo mafisomz wean: Hooa Amqmav 304 new Hoaum3 >H HHH HH H Honus< omfiunuouno Hmfluuwnoaa am nfizufia unmadouw>co xu03 Hmofiwoaonnoou 6H ofioauMfium> mo hmoaoahu < .H .wam 19 the actual activities of an industrial worker and his skill desig- nation as assigned to him by the enterprise. As Form has shown, skill classification in different societies is subject to peculiar local conditions.8 A.machine-tending worker or an assembler, for example, might be classified as a "skilled" worker in view of his seniority or some other reasons, and, conversely, a draftsman work— ing in a tool room might be designated as a "semi-skilled" worker. The three-fold typology suggested for this study is based on the degree of "control" that the worker exercises over the techno— logical process. According to Warner and Low, the industrial worker in each technique exerts his control over objects and materials. The routine manual worker ("low" occupational status) controls materials with his hands alone; the machine operator ("medium": status), too, guides materials to the machine with his hands, but he also uses certian tools to regulate and adjust the machine; and, finally, the craftsman ("high" status) controls materials with the aid of tools which he manipulates. The idea of worker's control over his work environment is perhaps best developed by Blauner who sees it as an aspect of auto- nomy or freedom. According to Blauner, the following five inter— related aspects of freedom together make up control over the imme- diate work process: (1) control over work pace, and (2) freedom from pressure.10 8. William H. Form, "A Cross-Cultural Exploration of a Crucial Con- cept: Skill Level," Unpublished manuscript, 1966. 9. Warner and Low, op. cit., p. 67. 10. Robert Blauner, "WOrk Satisfaction and Industrial Trends in Modern Society," in W. Galenson and S. M. Lipset (eds.), Labor and Trade unionism, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1960. 20 3. Freedom of physical movement 4. Ability to control the quantity and quality of pro- duction 5. Ability to choose the technique of work Blauner admits that the notion of control in work is a vague, sen— sitizing concept which covers a wide range of phenomena rather than a concept which is precisely delimited and identifiable by precise idicators, viewed was determined largely on the basis of Blauner's conceptuali- zation of "control." In addition to the job descriptions obtained from each worker, I personally observed their work behavior during my eight months' stay in the factory. used in this study, therefore, is based primarily on the type of The occupational status of each worker we inter- work actually done by the worker. In addition to the classification of each worker with reference to actual functions, his occupational status was also determined by the department or shop he worked in. departments of the plant that we studied were grouped into three broad categories: High Status "Cgaft or Repair" Depprtments 1. 2. 3. Tool Room Cutter Grinding Assembly Repairs Medium Status "Manufacturing" Departments \OWNO‘Ul-F O Axle and Transmission Machine Shop Motor Production Propeller Shaft Shock Absorber Trim Application Low Status "Routine Manual WOrk" Departments 10. 11. Assembly Line General Heat Treatment No. l The occupational status as For this purpose, the fifteen .L 21 12. General Heat Treatment No. 2 13. Heavy Press Shop 14. Sheet Metal Division No. 2 15. Sheet Metal Division No. 3 As might be expected, we found a considerable overlap between the two ranking methods - the functional and the departmental. Most of the "high" status workers were found in the high status "craft" or "repair" deparments, just as the majority of machine operators and manual workers worked in manufacturing and assembly o‘_w . . 7 departments, respectively. But in each case we found exceptions to this general pattern, and this was the basis for using the se- ‘3‘“‘” cond ranking device, based on department a person worked in. The occupational status of industrial workers with reference to the departments or shops they work in has not been employed in previous studies in a systematic manner. And yet, there is reason to believe that in the prestige hierarchy of an industrial plant, the prestige of a department in which one works has an important influence on the occupational status of its members. Hence, we propose to use both ranking methods, although our main focus will be an occupational status based on actual functions. Throughout this study, the terms "occupational status" and "technological work environment" will be used interchangeably. On the basis of the available evidence it can be generalized that the greater the degree of control that a worker has over his work process, the greater will be his satisfaction with the various aspects of his work experience. Thus, the craftsmen having greater control over their work environment are expected to show greater work satisfaction than either the machine operators or assemblers. And, conversely, since the machine operators and assemblers are 22 largely engaged in standardized tasks, and thus have relatively little control in work, they are expected to feel "powerless" and, therefore, dissatisfied with their work experience. we also expect that work satisfaction affects, in a positive way, the actual be- havior and involvement of workers in their occupational and social activities. These, then, are our major hypotheses to be pursued in this study. Both Blauner's comparative study of four industries and Deutsch's study of theOldsmobile workers in Lansing, Michigan leand support to our general hypotheses. We expect that the rela- tionships between technology, as manifested in occupational sta— tus of a worker, and work experience, as found among the Oldsmobile workers, will also hold for the Indian automobile workers despite enormous differences in the level of development and other socio- cultural factors in the two communities and societies. In the absence of any systematic cross-national studies in which at least one of the countries studied is at an early stage of industrial development, it is hard to justify the proposed hypo- theses through empirical evidence. The study that comes close to such an approach is that of Lambert, who showed that the suggested relationship between occupational status and satisfaction might pp; hold cross-culturally.11 However, we have reason to question the definition of "skill" as a measure of occupational status which he used to rank the Poona workers. Lambert's definition of skill is based exclusively on "wage slabs." Also, Poona, with a population 11. Richard D. Lambert, workers, Factories, and Social Change in India, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963, p. 213. J‘ 23 of three—quarters of a million, is one of the more traditional cities of India. Unlike Greater Bombay (the largest city of India with a population of over four million), Poona is not a center of commerce and industry. We expect, therefore, that the urban- industrial context of Greater Bombay is critical in shaping the work life of the Indian industrial worker. Additional Independent Variables Control of work, as reflected in the three-fold typology pro- posed in this study, is of course not independent of other factors. For instance, Deutsch found that skilled tradesmen (in contrast to production workers) are older, have more seniority, and are bet- ter educated if younger.12 Form and Geschwender found a positive correlation between job satisfaction and such characteristics as marital status, number of children, age, seniority, wages, and skill.13 Apparently, many of these variables are interrelated through some common variable like age. We propose to use in this study several demographic, background, and occupational variables in order to determine their effect (individually as well as collectively) on worker satisfaction. The relative importance of each such vari— able vis—a—vis occupational status will then be examined through multivariate analysis. We expect age, seniority, wages, level of education, occupa— tional background, and rural-urban background to be related to 12. Deutsch, op. cit. 13. William H. Form and James A. Geschwender, "Social Reference Basis of Job Satisfaction: The Case of Manual WOrkers," American Sociological Review, 27 (April, 1962), pp. 235—236. 24 occupational status. Thus, the workers in high status jobs (in contrast to those in lower status jobs) are expected to be older, better educated, drawn largely from non-agricultural occupational background, having more seniority, drawing higher wages, and from urban background. Although these six variables may be interrelated, their clustering around the major independent variable (if supported by our data) would be of great significance. Such a finding will, among other things, support the notion that a large industry with advanced technology functions largely in terms of universalistic principles and rational criteria. In order to test this notion further, we propose to examine the relationship between occupational status and such additional background factors as religion, caste, marital status, and number of children in the family. If the par- ticularistic tradition of the Indian society were to take precedence over the rationalized processes of modern industry, we would expect the high status occupational positions in the factory to be manned by Hindus and, among Hindus, by the members of upper castes. Like- wise, in an age—graded society like India, marital status and num— ber of children a worker has should affect his chances of obtaining a high-status job in the factory. But, in keeping with our Industrial Man perspective, we ex- pect that in a large and highly complex automobile factory, located as it is in a metropolitan city of India, factors like religion, caste, marital status, and number of children would be least rele— vant in the recruitment and promotion of workers for the various positions. The interrelationships of all the independent variables, including occupational status, will be discussed in Chapter III. 25 Dependent Variables and Hypotheses TWO classes of phenomena are proposed as dependent variables for this study: (1) attitudes concerning work satisfaction, and (2) certain aSpects of worker behavior. We expect to be able to predict both work satisfaction and the selected behavior patterns on the basis of his occupational status in the factory. (1) Work Satisfaction The use of the concept "job satisfaction" during the previous half century shows a variety of usages or meanings: 1. an overall liking for one's occupation as well as the job and factors related to work (usually measured through a direct question or two); 2. a composite index based on a number of items forming a scale of job satisfaction; and 3. making a distinction between occupational satisfaction, job satisfaction, and work satis- faction (used separately or in combination). Hoppock and other early students of job satisfaction treated job satisfaction as a unitary concept referring to a state of mind and having no reference to a discrete range of work situations. The present study, however, assumes that work satisfaction is not an overall feeling, but a cluster of attitudes and feelings concerning a wide range of work situations. To cite just one example in support of this position, Goldthorpe reports that dislike for unsatisfying work tasks can co-exist with appreciation of a firm which is felt by its employees to meet their 14 economic wants and expectations better than would most others. 14. John H. Goldthorpe, "Attitudes and Behavior of Car Assembly WOrkers: A Deviant Case and a Theoretical Critique," The British Journggpof Sociology, 17 (September, 1966), pp. 237-238. 26 But regardless of which approach is used to study work satisfac- tion, there still remains the important methodological problem of how to measure the nebulous phenomena to which the concept refers. Despite its obvious weaknesses we shall rely on the ver- bal responses of workers to both direct and indirect questions. The data on work satisfaction will thus be based on the personal evaluations by workers of their work experience. The following "areas" of work satisfaction have been chosen in order to examine the relationship between each of these and the independent vari- ables: Situs Satisfaction Satisfaction with the Company Occupational Satisfaction Occupational Aspirations Job Satisfaction LII-L‘UONH Situs Satisfaction: Social scientists usually divide the economic system into three sectors: the primary sector (agriculture), the secondary sector (industry), and the tertiary sector (commerce and services). Some writers argue that the industrial worker's desire to work as a small independent farmer, or in commerce and services, res flects his dissatisfaction with his present sector of employment. Thus, according to Chinoy, the American automobile worker‘s de- sire to become a small businessman or an independent farmer some day is seen as an index of his dissatisfaction with the industrial sector.15 15. Ely Chinoy, Automobile Workers and the American Dream, Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1955. 27 During the recent years, many social scientists have shown interest in examining the role of labor force commitment in eco- nomic development.16 One of the ways through which labor force commitment is measured is to see whether the worker has severed his ties with his rural or tribal roots, and has made the city his permanent home.17 It is argued that the continuing connections of industrial workers with their rural and agricultural background hinder the emergence of a committed labor force which, in turn, accounts for the low level of economic development of a society. Although more research is needed to test this notion, the little available evidence shows that the lack of labor force commitment in developing societies has been grossly exaggerated. Lambert, for example, points out that if we view commitment as the inten- tion to remain in factory employment, more than three-fourths d.18 Rather than viewing labor of the Indian workers are committe force commitment as the general response of an entire society, we suggest that it is perhaps more meaningful to study the dif— ferent degrees of commitment in a given social system. In the present study, we expect that the commippent of the Premier work? ers to their sector of employmenty(§itus) can beypredicted on the basis of a knowledge of their occupational stptus. 16. For an excellent compendium of research and Opinion on this subject, see Wilbert E. Moore and Arnold S. Feldman (eds.), Lgbor Commitment and Social Change in Developing Areas, New York: Social Science Research Countil, 1960. 17. Clark Kerr, "Changing Social Structure," in Moore and Feldman, op. cit. 18. Lambert, op. cit., p. 84. 28 Satisfaction with the Company: The next area proposed to be studied is worker's satisfac- tion with his present employers, the company. As already observed, the automobile industry is generally regarded as the locus classicus of worker alienation, which is reflected in his dissatisfaction with the various aspects of occupational experience. It is argued that the automobile worker lacks commitment to the company which is manifested in his persistent sense of grievance and in his erra— tic and often disruptive behavior in the industrial relations field. The Indian automobile industry is of recent origin. But, both in view of its advanced technology and the product that it manufactures, it is one of the best-paying and high-prestige indus— tries in the country. We would, therefore, expect that, regardless of how the workers felt about their work experience, their level of satisfaction with the firm would be generally high. However, we do not expect satisfaction with the firm to be independent of occu- pational status within the factory. Since differences in occupa- tional status (as used here) follow essentially the same typology as that used by Blauner and others, we expect that among the Indian workers, too, occupational status isppositively related to satis- faction with the company. Occnpational Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction: The last two areas of work experience, the occupation and the job, are probably the most critical in any study of job satisfac— tion. It is as an incumbent of a particular job and as a member of a given occupation that the industrial worker experiences the joys or frustrations of his daily work. Since lines between 29 occupation and job are often blurred, many students of job satis— faction fail to make a distinction between the two. we prefer to treat the two areas separately by defining "job" as a specific aspect of the more general concept "occupation." Thus, a skilled worker (an occupational status) may hold such.jpp§_as die—ordmodel- maker in the tool room, machine-setter or repairman in a produc— tion shop, or inspector or mechanic in the final assembly department. In addition to making a distinction between job and occupation, we also propose to examine occupational aSpirations as an indirect manifestation of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the present occupation. It is expected that occupationgl status is positively related to each of the three areas: occupational,satisfaction, occupational aspirations, and 10b satisfaction. (2) Worker Behavior Implicit in all research on job satisfaction is the notion that work satisfaction is somehow related to employee performance, as manifested in his involvement in work. And industrial manage- ment usually goes a step farther in assuming that job satisfaction is related to worker efficiency, thereby contributing to increased productivity. Since these two assumptions are the raison d'etre of much research on job satisfaction we should expect some studies to focus on the relationship between job satisfaction and occupa- tional behavior. But curiously this task has not received the attention it deserves. To the few studies that do investigate the relationship between job attitudes and certain aspects of worker behavior, we add the present study. The following aspects of worker behavior have been selected for this prupose: (1) attendance 30 at work, (2) union involvement, (3) neighborhood involvement, and (4) community involvement. Attendance at Work: Of close to two thousand studies on job attitudes reviewed by Herzberg and his callaborators, only thirteen examined the relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. In twelve of those studies, data were presented to show that workers with negative job attitudes tend to have high rates of absenteeism.19 Since work satisfaction is expected to be a function of occupa- tional status, we anticipate that work attendance would be posi- tively related to occupational status. Union Involvement: At least two aspects of workers' involvement in union acti- vities will be examined: interest in unions in general and par— ticipation in union activities. Of the many areas of work experi- ence discussed so far, union behavior is perhaps most unique and thus least comparable to the American scene. The peculiarity of the Indian social and cultural context is most pronounced in this case. In a big industry with highly rationalized production sys- tem, we would expect to find a strong and active trade union. But the Indian labor scene being marked by rival unions and in the absence of collective bargaining, a strong interest to join a union is still lacking among the rank and file. There is no limit to the number of unions that a factory may have; union 19. Frederick Herzberg et al., Job Attitudes: Review of Research and Opinion, Pittsburgh, Pa.: Psychological Service of Pittsburgh, 1957, p. 105. 1 u l u ,7 . . . . x . I I . . . . I V J ‘ r . ~ u q I , . J . . . . z. , ‘ . . . . r _ . . ¢ . - / a s . , . . . g f I ‘ . 1 .4. . v ’ 31 membership is not compulsory; no arrangements exist for "checkoff" of union dues; heterogeneity of the labor force in such matters as religion, language, regional background, and level of educa- tion - these are some of the factors that inhibit active union involvement in India.20 The top union leaders in India (as in many other developing countries) are often an educated elite - "outsiders" who have had little factory work experience. As observed in a recent re- port, union organizations in developing countries "appear to be all head and no body. The men who stand at the top are self- appointed spokesmen for a membership which is only partly commit- n21 ted. Although the structural features of Indian unionism are quite dissimilar to those of its American counterpart, a rather low degree of union participation is reported for both countries.22 Studies of the American worker show that skilled tradesmen (in contrast to the semi-skilled and unskilled workers) tend to have greater union interest and participation.23 We expect similar re- lationship to hold among the Indian automobile workers. 20. For a good review of trade unionism in India, see Charles A. Myers, Labor Problems in the Industrialization of India, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958; Oscar A. Ornati, Jobs and WOrkers in India, Ithaca, New York: The Institute of International Industrial and Labor Re- lations, 1955; and Subhiah Kannappan, "The Gandhian Model of Unionism in a Developing Economy: The TLA in India," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 16, 1 (October, 1962), pp. 86-110. 21. "Labor Unions and Politics in the Developing Countries," Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, Research Report No. 11, n.d. 22. Joel Seidman et al., The Worker Views His Union, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1958, pp. 199-200. 23. Deutsch, op. cit., pp. 65—66. \l 32 Neighborhood and Community Involvement: Involvement in the affairs of one's neighborhood and community are the remaining two areas of worker behavior to be investigated in this study. Here again, we expect occupational status to be positively related to both community involvement and neighborhood. involvement. This assumption is based on the fact that occupa- tional status is a composite index of a person's income, level of education, age, and other attributes. And, as is well known, par- ticipation in the affairs of one's community and neighborhood is closely related to socio—economic status. Thus, Deutsch found that the production workers (in contrast to the skilled craftsmen) participated less in neighborhood and community activities.24 Concerning the industrial community, Kerr and his associates write: New relationships based upon employment or occupation come to replace the larger family and village attach- ments. New methods of communication among city dwell- ers - newspapers and radio - replace those of the vil- lage. The role of the extended family as a source of security and an object of loyalty is weakened and its place is taken in some measure by the governments of the city and nationalist state." 5 Since movement up the occupational status ladder within a factory generally means longer exposure to the urban-industrial experience, we would expect that the craftsmen (in contrast to the machine operators and routine manual workers) have organized their social relationships within the neighborhood and the community along the 24. Ibid. 25. Clark Kerr et al., Industrialism and Industrial Man: The Prob— lem of Labor and Management in Economic Growth, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 171. 1\ "/ . . .I . . . I I . . I f I ~ . . v . \ n . . r s L r \ . I. f . . . . D _ . . I .1 a r . .1 r 4 t r I u . . f .I I . . x I o. : u I I: f 0 II x k . t u . . . 1. . s v a f y I 0 x . v . _. . t /\ 33 lines suggested by Kerr and associates. To the extent that this is true, we expect that the higher the occupational status of a worker, the greater will be his involvement in both his community and the neighborhood. Summary of Hypotheses: In the latter half of this chapter we have discussed and specified a number of hypotheses that are proposed to be tested through this study. These hypotheses are summarized below: Occupational status is positively related to each of the following "areas" of worker satisfaction and behavior: Situs Satisfaction Satisfaction with the Company Satisfaction with the present Occupation Occupational Aspirations Job Satisfaction Attendance at Work Union Involvement Neighborhood Involvement Community Involvement \OmHO\U'IJ-\U)Nl—' O In addition to the bivariate analysis of data involved in testing the above hypotheses, we propose to introduce (as already indicated) a number of other independent variables as "intervening" or "control" variables. Partly due to the limitations placed by small sample size, and also in view of the nature of our data, the multivariate analysis to be attempted in this study will in— volve only trivariate tables in which, for example, variable X will be cross—tabulated against variable Y, holding variable Z constant. The third-dimension variables to be used for this type of analysis are listed below: . Rural-Urban Background . Religion 1 2 3. Caste 4. Education 34 5. Age 6. Marital Status 7. Number of Children 8. Seniority 9. Wages 10. Occupational Background Our interest in the above "control" factors is only indirect. As some of these factors are expected to be related to occupational status, they are also likely to be associated with some of the de- pendent variables to be investigated. It is hoped that in such cases, after controlling for the third factor, we will be able to determine the relative importance of occupational status in in- fluencing worker satisfaction and behavior. The reasons for in— cluding such variables as religion and caste may be found toward the end of the first chapter. Sample Design and Data Collection We are interested in studying only those industrial workers who are directly working at machine technology for the manufacture or assembly of automobiles or parts thereof. The population thus defined automatically excluded managerial, supervisory, and cleri— cal workers of the factory. Also excluded were those industrial workers who were working in such non-production departments as Canteen, Construction, Material Handling, Sales, Salvage, Sanita- tion, Service, Stores, Traffic, and the like. The total strength of daily-rated, industrial workers at the plant, at the time of this study, was 5,725. Excluding the non-production departments mentioned above (which had a total strength of 1,849) we had 28 departments with a total strength of 3,876 (or, two—thirds of the total work force). Those 3,876 production workers constitute our "population" for purposes of this study. 35 We decided to select a stratified random sample of about 300 workers from the population. The chief criterion for stratifying the population was "skill level," the records for which were made available to us by the firm. However, it was discovered that skill designations as assigned by the company were not reliable for our purposes. We found, for example, that no less than two-thirds of the workers on the final assembly line had been classified as "skilled" workers whereas, conversely, the proportions of "semi- skilled" and "unskilled" workers on the final assembly line were only 29 percent and 5 percent, respectively! We then decided to go through the various departments of the factory to carefully observe and identify the various technological work environments. This was done, and after several such visits, we selected fifteen (out of 28) departments which seemed to repre— sent a cross—section of the population under study. The total work force in those fifteen departments was 2,323 (or, three—fifths of the "population"). Next, by using tables of random numbers, we chose a "simple random sample" equal to ten percent of the strength of the fifteen departments. In view of the analytical requirements of this study, we then over-sampled the assembly-line workers. This was done simply by including pll_the assemblers in the car assembly line department in our sample. Through the procedure outlined above, we obtained 288 names, which represented twelve percent of the total work force in the fifteen selected departments of the factory, and seven percent of the work force considered to be our "population." The following figure will help describe the sample size in relation to the granitmhls :1. . I I A I. 36 population as well as the total strength of industrial workers in the factory. Figure 2. The sample size in relation to the population and the total strength of industrial workers in the factory. SAMPLE_(N = 288) — 7.4% of “Population" // I "POPULATION"J(N - 31876_ Production WOrkens I Non-Production Workers (N = 1,849) All factory workers (daily-rated only) = 5,725 Of the 288 workers selected for interviewing, 262 (or, 91 percent) were interviewed. Of the 26 workers not interviewed, nine refused to be interviewed while the other seventeen could not be reached as they were either sick, on long leave, or al- ready discharged from factory employment. 1.131311% 37 Data for the study were gathered through intensive interviews with 262 workers. These interviews were conducted on the factory premises with the approval of both the management and the unions. The chief investigator (Sharma) was assisted by two interviewers (Dighe and Kinikar). The workers in most cases were interviewed in their mother tongues which happened to be one of the following six languages: Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, and English. It took on the average three hours to complete each.interview; The entire working force of the factory under study is male and, therefore, the sample consists of all-male.workers. Also, every one in the sample has at least one year's seniority in Premier. After the stratified random sample was selected from the total factory population, in the manner discribed above, and after 262 interviews had been completed, we.were in a position to compare the characteristics of workers in the sample with those of the total factory population along certain dimensions. In the.course of this study, we discovered that the factory administration had conducted a survey in which they collected data about the work. force, as on December 31, 1964, along certian dimensions such as age, seniority, etc. These data were gathered from the official employment records for each of the close to six thousand workers instead of using a simple random sample.’ Such data are rarely available to social scientists and, therefore, we felt quite jubi- lant at the opportunity of being able to find out whether our sample was in fact representative of the population under study. A comparison of the characteristics of the sample workers vis—advis total factory population (along some of the dimensions_ 38 mentioned above) is shown in Appendix A. This comparison revealed that with minor exceptions the sample generally represents the to— tal factory population. Thus, the stratified random sample selected for this study not only satisfies the analytical demands of the research design, but also represents the population from which it was drawn. The conclusions and generalizations to be made in the analysis of the data has relevance not only for the 262 workers interviewed but also for the factory population of industrial workers. CHAPTER III THE FACTORY Before examining the role of occupational status, our major independent variable, in shaping the attitudes and behavior of automobile workers it seems appropriate to discuss the characteris- tics of the work force under study. The present chapter is designed to do this with at least two things in mind: first, to describe the distribution of workers in terms of several demographic charac- teristics and, second, to examine the inter-relationships of all independent variables which we propose to use as "control" variables in the following chapters. In the process of doing this we hope to derive a series of "profiles" of the Premier worker. But first, let us look at the brief history of industrial development in India and its relation to the Indian automobile industry. The Indian Automobile Industry The origins of modern industry in India can be traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century when industries like cotton, jute, coal, and rails were first established. But for half a century (that is, until the establishment of Tata iron and steel works in 1911), the industrial growth in India remained confined to the already established four industries.1-The almost complete lack of organized industry in light engineering up to the late 1930's is attributed by some writers to the British predwar policy, particularly its refusal to protect I. Charles A. Myers, Labor Problems in the Industrialization of India, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958, p. 14. 39 40 infant industry and the policy of buying all government stores in England.2 The diversified industrial growth thus had to wait until World war II and independence in 1947. Myers sums up the conse- quences of this shift of emphasis from the older industries to the more recently established ones:3 From 1946 to 1953, jute, and cotton textiles, and the coal industry, increased capacity less than 25 per cent. In the same period capacity for produc- tion of electric lamps, batteries, motors, trans- formers and fans, radios, sewing machines, diesel engines, cement and bicycles was increased over 100 per cent. The same trend is apparent in output sta- tistics. From 1946 to 1955 the output of coal, steel, cotton, and jute textiles increased one third or less; but among, for example, chemicals, cement, sewing machines, and the general engineering catagory, no increase was less than 170 percent. After independence, therefore, India experienced not only rapid indus- trial growth but also the diversification of her industrial structure. Some writers have suggested that the Gandhian philoSOphy and cer- tain aspects of the Hindu social structure are not congruent with the development of industrial organization in India. Gandhi believed, for instance, that "industrialism" was responsible for a host of evils; among the gravest were unemployment, destruction of the village unit, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. Admittedly some machinery would, as a practical matter, have to stay, but these machines must be subordinated to man and his requirements, serving him and not he them.4 Although the Indian government (at least the ruling Congress party) has been loyal to Gandhi's teachings in some other ways, its economic policies clearly depart from the Gandhian thinking 2. Ibid,, p. 16. 3. Ibid., p. 18. 4. Ibid., p. 32. 41 outlined above. Hence, today it is industrialization, not the village handicraft economy, that is the primary goal of the Indian government. The automobile factory selected for this study is one of the two Indian enterprises in the private sector which laid the foundation, in the late 1940's, for the indigenous automobile industry.5 Prior to this, however, there were three assembly plants, one each in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, which began to operate in the late 1920's as subsidiaries of General Motors, G. Mackenzie and Company, and Ford Motor Company, respectively. The automobile industry in India, there- fore, is at least forty years old. After independence, the govern- ment allowed only those firms which had a "manufacturing" program to continue producing vehicles. As a result of this, the three old as— sembly plants were closed down. Today there are at least six facto— ries, all in the private sector, which are engaged in the manufacture and assembly of various types of vehicles, e.g., cars, jeeps, trucks, and buses. According to the latest information available, the total production of the entire industry rose by 69 percent during the five years ending 1961. And yet, the combined annual production of the six plants was only 54,312 units in 1961, which is much below the potential demand in a country of over 400 million inhabitants. During the forty years since the establishment of the first as- sembly plant in India, a number of automobile ancillary industries have come into existence. The agencies for distribution of vehicles, the repair and service shops, the tire and battery industries, the manufacture of body panels for commercial vehicles, are just a few of 5. _1pdia: Handbook of Commercial Information, Calcutta: Department of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Government of India, 1963, pp. 108—128. The following account of the In- dian automobile industry draws heavily from this source. 42 the ancillary industries which are rapidly growing in India. In addi- tion, the indigenous iron and steel, non—ferrous metal and paint in- dustries have come into being in order to meet the needs for raw ma— terial for the automobile industry. The industry itself generally produces only the major components and buys from the ancillary indus- try parts and accessories worth more than half of the total ex-works price of the complete vehicle. As the Indian government further re- strict imports, the ancillary industry will develop in the near future at an even faster rate than the automobile industry itself. According to the latest available information, there are 58 fac- tories engaged in the manufacture of motor vehicles, or parts thereof, excluding the "repair" industry.6 The total work force employed by these 58 factories was 48,812 in 1960 out of which 40,447 (or, 83 per- cent) were called "workers" while the remaining as persons other than workers.7 The proportion of women in the work force is less than one percent for the nation, and almost nil in the state of Maharashtra. There is no female worker in the factory under study. Most of the workers are hired directly by the automobile industry; the proportion of those hired through contractors is nine percent for the nation and six percent for the state of Maharashtra. The state of Maharashtra, of which Bombay is the capital, alone accounts for one-third of the number of factories, the number of work- ers, and the output of manufactured goods in the Indian automobile in- dustry. Maharashtra is also the most industrialized as well as the most urbanized among all Indian states. Whereas the population of 6. Annual Survey of Industries - 1960, V61. IX, Government of India, p. 112. 7. Ibid., p. 114. 43 Maharashtra constitutes only nine percent of the total Indian popula- tion, one-sixth of all factories and one—fifth of all factory workers are located in Maharashtra. Similarly, whereas the all—India propor- tion of urban population is 18 percent, Maharashtra leads all states with an urban population of 28 percent. And, finally, the average per capita annual earnings of employees in manufacturing industries for Maharashtra exceed the national average by Rupees 200 to 300. The Indian automobile industry enjoys tariff protection through restriction of import of built-up vehicles, which is designed to step- up the manufacture of indigenous parts for the vehicles. For the plant under study the manufacture of the indigenous content had already reach- ed close to 85 percent for the passenger car. It is expected that when the entire vehicle can be manufactured in India with indigenous parts, the total production will rise considerably. Meanwhile, the industry is subject of strict regulation and control by the Indian government. The factory under study was incorporated in June, 1944 with the object of assembling and, ultimately, manufacturing automobiles. It entered into collaboration with Chrysler Corporation of the United States (for trucks) and with Fiat Societa Per Azioni of Italy (for passenger cars). The factory was installed with a press shop, a ma— chine shop and a forge shop. The assembly operations commenced in the factory in 1947 and the manufacture of certain sheet metal compo- nents was taken up in 1949. By 1956 the factory had made appreciable progress in the manufacture of engine, gear box and other components for both cars and trucks. The daily output of the factory in terms of complete vehicles is forty units. Only one—third of this output is passenger car while 15.5): r. ggdhwfl 44 the remaining are commercial vehicles.8 Like the other automobile plants in the country, the Bombay plant is operating at a level much below its capacity. This fact has some important consequences for the work organization in the plant. For example, even on the final assembly line (which is notorious for its conveyor-belt techs nologY) I did not find people working at a rapid pace. In fact, there was no mechanicallyhpaced, moving line for the assembly work. But, then, the pace of work throughout the factory reflected more or less a similar, unhurried pattern. The daily output by an indi— vidual worker was regulated by mutually accepted, written schedules of production and not by some mechanical devices. Since the factory started out as an assembly plant, most of the workers hired during the first few years of its operations pos— sessed little or no skills. Only a relatively small core of mechan- ics and maintenance workers were required during the early stages of production process. As the plant began to manufacture some of the components a shift in the hiring of workers seems to have taken place. Whereas the workers hired earlier needed little or no previous experience in industrial—manufacturing occupations, the workers who were hired subsequently to man the production machines were selec- tively drawn from the industrial—manufacturing sector. The typical worker of the first phase of operations in Premier was an "assembler" whereas his counterpart recruited in the fifties and the sixties is a "machine operator." These two types of workers differ from each 8. Compare this rate of production with that, for example, of the Oldsmobile plant in Lansing, Michigan where one automobile comes off the assembly line every 40 seconds, that is, at the rate of 90 units per hour. 45 other not only in terms of their work tasks but also, and even more significantly, in terms of their social and occupational background. The expansion program in Premier is still in progress. Only recently the factory has established a large stamping plant of its own at a site removed from the old site by some twenty miles. An additional factor has contributed to the hiring of better educated and experienced workers in Premier during the recent years. During the post-independence years the government of India have es— tablished a number of technical schools in the country which train young men in the various trades required by the developing indus- tries. The minimum requirement for admission to such schools is usually high school education. When these young men compete for jobs in industry with older persons who had less education and no formal technical training, the former are usually preferred for re— cruitment. The more recently recruited workers in Premier are young- er and have more education than their predecessors. Background and Other Demographic Characteristics The following discussion is intended to shed some more light on the characteristics of the work force under study. First, we will describe the distribution of workers along each of the several dimensions and, next, an attempt will be made to examine the inter— relationships of the various dimensions. Most of the Premier workers come from non-agricultural families. Only one—half of the grandfathers and one—third of the fathers of these workers were engaged in agricultural occupations, which is quite low in a country like India where even today over three-fourths of the population depends upon agriculture for a living. 46 Most of the fathers had some education; only one-third are re- ported to have had no education at all. In the Census of 1961, one- fourth of the total Indian population is described as literate, and compared to this proportion the literacy rate among the fathers of Premier workers (which is 68 percent) is remarkably high. The fa- thers had had, on the average, four grades of education. Three—fourths of the fathers were born in rural places. But when we consider their educational and occupational background, we strongly suspect that many of them moved out of the villages and in- to urban places. This is confirmed, at least in part, by the fact that only about one-half of the Premier workers (as against three- fourths of their fathers) were born in rural areas. Only two-tenths of the total Indian population is classified as "urban" according to the Census of 1961. Although the state of Maharashtra (of which Bombay is the capital) claims threeetenths of her population to be urban, the proportion of urban-born workers in Premier (which is 47 percent) is still quite high. India is a land of many religions and almost every religion of the world is represented there. The majority of the population, however, belongs to Hinduism which accounts for 84 percent of the total population. A slightly higher proportion of other religious groups are to be found in cities and, thus, the proportion of Hindus in Greater Bombay is only 72 percent. The religious composition of the Premier work force roughly corresponds to the population of Greater Bombay; 69 percent of these workers are Hindus. As "caste" has since been dropped from the Indian Census as well as in other official records, we have.no information on the 47 caste composition of the population, either at the national level or for Greater Bombay. Thus, it is not possible to compare the factory work force with the outside world. The distribution of Hindu workers in Premier in terms of "caste" is below:9 Brahmin . . . 26% Maratha . . . 41 Artisan . . . 7 Servant . . .__2_§_ Total . . .100% Of the above four groups of castes, the Artisan castes perhaps come closest to the type of work done in a modern factory. And yet, only 7 percent of the Premier workers belong to Artisan castes, which sug- gests that traditional caste status neither encourages nor discour- ages people from joining modern factory work. The ratio of workers from the upper two caste groups to those from the lower two is 2 to 1. Only one-thnth.of the workers we studied had no education, while the median education for the sample was six grades, which is quite high compared to the fact that only onerfourth of the total Indian population are literate. Almost two—tenths of the workers had com- pleted high school and a few had even attended college. Like the population of Greater Bombay, the.work.force of Premier is drawn from various regions of the country, both far and wide. About two-thirds of the workers come from Maharashtra (including oner quarter who were born in Bombay itself). Another one—fifth are drawn from the adjoining states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Mysore, and 9. The Brahmins (and in fact every other caste group) referred to in this study are an all-India category, that is, varna and not a localized, endogamous jati. As an all-India varna, each caste group refers to a congeries of jatis which differ from each other in language, diet, dress, occupation and style of life. 48 the union territory of Goa while the remaining workers come from the North (11 percent) and the South (3 percent). Although.most workers speak the local language, Marathi, there are at least as many other languages spoken by the workers as there are the re- gions of the country they come from. Before entering premier, the average worker had had about five years' occupational experience in about four different jobs. The present job in Premier is a first job for only one-tenth of the work force. For those who had past experience, the most com- mon sector of employment was industrialdmanufacturing, including small specialty shops. The distribution of workers in terms of occupational background is below: Industrial-Manufacturing (including small specialty shops) . . . 47% Premier is the first job . . . 11 Business and Services . . . 28 Agriculture . . . 14 Total . . . 100% For most of the workers with previous experience, their occu- pational history shows that on the whole they are upwardly mobile persons. The proportion of those whose occupational mobility can be described as "steady up" or "flactuating up" is more than one- half, compared to one—tenth of the "steady down" or "fluctuating down" types . The average length of service in Premier is eight years. Over one—third of the workers have been in Premier for more than ten years, including some who have been with the firm from its very inception in 1947. When we add to this the previous experience of the workers, we find that the average worker has had a total of thirteen years' occupational experience, in at least five jobs. 49 The automobile industry in India is among the best paying. The average income of the workers we studied was Rupees 234 per month, exclusive of over—time payments and fringe benefits but inclusive of dearness allowance, which constitutes a substantial part of the total monthly earnings. Compared to the per capita income for the nation as a whole, or the average earnings of fac— tory workers in general, the wages of the Premier workers are con— siderably higher. The average per capita annual earnings of em— ployees in manufacturing industries are given below along with those of Premier workers: Average per capita annual earnings of employees in manufacturing in 1962 All states . . . Rs. 1,599.63 State of Maharashtra . . . Rs. 1,866,61 Premier sample (1965) . . . Rs. 2,808.00 Aside from other considerations, the high wages make Premier one of the high prestige factories to work in. But, it should be re— membered that automobile workers constitute only about one percent of the total factory employment in India. The median age of the Premier worker is 31 years. No worker in our sample is below the age of 21 and only a small number are fifty years of age or older. Four-fifths of the workers are mar- ried and they have, on the average, 2.2 children per family. To sum up the above, workers in Premier differ substantially from the surrounding population. They seem to have been selectively drawn from the larger society in terms of educational and occupa— tional background. The industry appears to prefer the educated workers over the non-educated, urban-born over the rural—born, and those.with.experience in industrial-manufacturing occupations over 50 the ones with background in agriculture or business and services occupations. It is a combination of these factors, among others, that gives the work force of this industry a rather unique char— acter. 10 Interrelationships of Background and Other Demographic Characteristics In the following portion of this chapter we propose to examine the interrelationships of some of the major variables that have been described above individually. Table 1 shows their interrela— tionships in a summary form. In preparing this table, we cross- tabulated each of the twelve variables against all others and, thus, the data presented in the table are based on 66 bivariate contin- gency tables. For obvious reasons, it would perhaps hinder rather than help understanding the interrelationships if we had included all the tables here. On the other hand, presentation of the data in the present form (which is perhaps overly simplified) can be mis- leading. Thus, for example, the responses like "high" or "marrie " or "urban" as indicated in the table should be read in terms of more or less and not in an absolute sense. Unless otherwise indi- cated by "n.s." (not significant), all relationships presented in the table are statistically significant. And the level of signifi— cance in all but three cases (1x9, 1x10, 2x10) is 5% (P<:.05) or better. In the three cases, which have been underlined in the ta— ble, the relationships are significant at 10% level (P<:.10). Each of the twelve variables included in the table will be described next in relation to all others, thereby presenting a series of "profiles" 10. For further sample data, please refer to Appendix B. 5] I oo_ttmz o_o 304 .m.c ;m_: ;m_: .m.c 304 to304 soc_: .m.c N. coto__;0 otoe to m coz I I O O O O DUE-I O O >cmz I v.0 m c m c ;m_z ;m_: m c 304 c0304 . m c __ oo_ttmz coz I> :oc.: cm: motto: I 304 304 :3: :3: .m.: 304 .5304 an 53.5 o_ Bo .m I m: o m III to3om .m.c mcno> I ;m_: ;m_: 304 .mswn_ ;m_: .m.c noc_: cont: m _mcMmWoe:wuw :m.: I .msz maumum .m.c .m.c mc30> ;m_: I ;m_: cm_: .m:oc. zm_: .m.c .m.c cont: m .mcMwwmaauoo sm.: >coz o0_ctmy v.0 rm”: ;m_: I ;m_: .wwwnfl 304 L0304 .m.c cont: m momo3 ;m_:I >cmz oo_ttmy o_o 304 ;m_: ;m_z I .m.c 304 to304 numb: cont: m >4_t0_com cm_r : .m.c .m.c .m.c ;m_: ;m_z ;m_: .m.c I ;m_: toad: .m.c cont: mocJOmeumm _m_cum:oc_ to3om 0—mc_m mc30> Lm_: ;m_: 304 304 .wwmmfl I Loan: :oc_: .m.: : :0_umozom ;m_: to3ou 0—mc_m mczo> .m.: .m.: 304 304 .wwmnfi ;m_: I I .m.c m oumoo cone: Lo3ou 0—mc_m mc30> ;m_: .m.: .m.c 304 .m.c ;m_: I I _mt:x N 3pc_: .m.c .m.c o. ;m_: ;w_: ;m_: ;m_: .wmmn“ .m.c .m.c no:_: I _ econ cont: 0 m s a ..... -IINI,.-..I¢--.., m m. 0 a V \I 0 \II 0 M S 0-3 3 3 a 0-” mm .s. w w w m m. w m. w w m my a m M... n. Hum. m.” .a S n u s n a I. xtd 0 1. I. X.I. Pa n .4. 9 1d 0 1d S o 5 e e a 6 6 . J p. e .4 e 9 J J 1 1. I. J n JJ SE 1.1.1!1.1. I. OI. I. S 0 OJ W o l m n I. o n I. 1 n o 0 .4 u n a. .. a s w w s m I WW I e u e 1. E II\ 9 l m. DIU ( II. l S Au;m_t 04 “mo. .mmotom omomv mo_nm_to> ucoocooooc_ chEm ma_;mco_um_oeeouc_ ._ 0—40h 52 of the Premier worker. For this purpose we have grouped the twelve variables into three broad groups: (1) background factors, (2) oc- cupational variables, and (3) demographic characteristics. 1. Background Fact0rs(RuraléUrban'Background,Religion,Caste Education) Compared with the other two groups, the background factors are relatively less critical in the work lives of Premier workers. And yet, some of these factors, particularly education, provide a key to our understanding several of the other aspects of the work force. RURAL-URBAN BACKGROUND: The urban-born workers (compared to the rural born), typically, are non-Hindus, are slightly older and have past experience in industrialdmanufacturing occupations. Such workers have been with the firm for a longer period of time.and, therefore, earn higher wages than the.more recently hired, rural— born workers. Primarily because of their length of employment in Premier, and the occupational experience gained therein, these older, urban-born workers are found mostly in high status jobs and depart- ments of the factory. Caste status, level of education, marital status, and number of children ShOW'nO differences for place of birth, whether rural or urban. RELIGION: The Hindu workers, compared to the non—Hindus, gen— erally come from rural places, and seem to have a higher level of education. The Hindus, typically, joined Premier more recently and, thus, have lower seniority as compared to the non-Hindu workers. Finally, the Hindu workers are younger in age, are increasingly un- married, and have fewer children if married. Although a greater pro- portion of Hindus work in the high status departments of the factory e.g., 53 repair, design, and manufacturing departments, they do not neces- sarily hold high status‘iéb§_there. Also, there is no relation- ship between religion, on the one hand, and such factors as occu- pational background, wages, and occupational status, on the other. CASTE: Among the Hindu workers, caste is related to several characteristics. The higher caste Hindus (in contrast to the lower caste Hindus) have more education and have.had experience in the industrial-manufacturing sector. But these higher caste, Hindu workers are relatively young, have lower seniority in Premier and, therefore, earn lower wages. Being younger, these workers are, typically, unmarried and have fewer children if married. The highe er caste workers, however, do not differ from their lower caste counterparts in such matters as occupational status within the fac- tory or place of birth (rural-urban). EDUCATION: WOrkers with higher education are generally Hin- dus and members of upper castes, if Hindus. Such workers usually come from industrial—manufacturing background and work in the high status jobs and departments of the factory. This is so in spite of the fact that most of these highly educated workers are relatively young, have lower seniority in Premier, and earn lower wages. The inverse relationship between education and age is reflected in the fact that the workers with higher education, typically are unmarried and have fewer children if married. Surprisingly enough, there are no significant differences between the rural-born and the urban- born workers in terms of level of education. It appears that only those of the rural—born are selected for employment in the factory who have some education. The notion of the illiterate rural migrants 54 taking up jobs in city factories is not supported by the data from this study. 2. Occupational Variables (Occupational Background, Seniority, Wages,_Occupational Status) With only one exception, each of the four occupational vari— ables is significantly related to all others. Also, this group of variables shows high association with demographic characteris— tics like age, marital status, and number of children. By and large, the occupational variables are only weakly related to back? ground factors. OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: WOrkers with past experience in in- dustrialemanufacturing occupations (in contrast to those with back- ground in agriculture or business and service occupations) are more likely to be urban-born and, if Hindus, members of the upper castes. Such workers usually have more education, earn higher wages, and work in high status jobs and departments of the factory. There is no sig- nificant relationship between occupational background, on the one hand, and religion, length of service in Premier, age, marital sta- tus and number of children, on the other. SENIORITY: Length of service in Premier is related to both background variables as well as several demographic characteristics. Thus, workers with longer seniority (in contrast to those who joined more recently) are usually urban-born, non-Hindus, and, if Hindus, members of the lower castes. Such workers have a lower level of edu- cation, are older, married, and have more children if married. Main— ly, due to their longer seniority in the plant, these workers are holding high status jobs and earn higher wages, although most of them o I. . . n . V . , . . r . . 9 u Q t ‘ I u . u - . . f . . \ n e n ' I v 4 D . . 4 r . . . . o . . A, . . . . . o 1 I c . \ . - c . I w . . A . n I I — p. 1 I r . . I . a r . . i \ . . , _ . . r . . x v u . . ( y . . V . . « . p: l . o . t . . . a a , I . o — . . o .I . r ~. . . n f ‘ _ . . . . . . . .2 . I n , . I . \ . V . . . 4 , o . . . V I Ow . \ , p . u 9 \¢ 0 . . \ x b . v I I P n \ . ¢ r ~ ‘ \ ~ . o . . 5 ~. . . t . v 0 x ‘ fl . r. 4 r . p . ‘ , . . r O l .n . s I n r , I I . . . l y A _ n w n a u I . . u . 0 I .. I t ( . I I 7' h . y I . . . O « . o I t n n . 1 . . 4 p » . r o v . b I . p \ A _ . I e n J ’1 . . . . . . ~ ‘ r . I. a v . r I . r . g r . r e A. o \ r . r x e . v f ~ 4!: .7. gig; ’i . 55 usually work in low status departments of the plant. There is no significant relationship between seniority in Premier and occupa— tional background before entering this plant. WAGES: The wage policy in Premier is such that it rewards age and seniority more than, for example, level of education. Thus, the workers earning higher wages are mostly older, have more senior— ity in Premier, are married, and have more children if married. Such workers, compared to the lower paid ones, are usually urban— born, have less education, and belong to lower castes if Hindus. The highly paid workers have had previous experience in industrial- manufacturing occupations. Most of these workers are found in high status jobs and departments of the factory. There are no differences in wages between the Hindu and non—Hindu workers. OCCUPATIONAL STATUS (FUNCTIONS):11 The high status jobs in Premier are generally held by workers who come from urban background and who have had past experience in industrialdmanufacturing occupa- tions. The holders of high status jobs have higher education, more seniority, and earn higher wages. Such workers tend to be relatively younger than those in low status jobs. There is no significant re- lationship between occupational status, on the one hand, and such factors as religion, caste, marital status, and number of children. Thus, none of these background factors either encourage or discourage the movement of a worker in the occupational hierarchy of the plant. OCCUPATIONAL STATUS (DEPARTMENT): The departmental hierarchy generally corresponds to the "functional" ranking discussed above. 11. In view of the importance of this major independent variable, more detailed data concerning association between this and other independent variables have been included in Appendix C. 56 This is so because most of the high status jobs (e.g., craftsmen, mechanics, etc.) are usually found in the high status departments, just as the routine manual workers, typically, work in low status departments of the factory. The distinction between the two rank- ing devices is made only for analytical purposes. The workers in the high status departments (especially the more recently added manu- facturing departments) are relatively younger, have low seniority, and, if married, have fewer children. But these workers have more education, have had experience in industrial-manufacturing occupa- tions, and earn higher wages. Finally, such workers (in the high status departments, that is) are urban-born and a higher proportion of them are Hindus. There is no relationship between occupational status (department) and caste status or marital status. 3. Demographic Characteristicsngge, Marital Status,gNumber of Children) These three demographic characteristics are related to many others. Thus, the older workers have more seniority because of which they occupy high status jobs and earn higher wages. Of course, a greater proportion of the older workers are married and have more children if married. It is strongly felt that the age of workers influences many of the relationships that are being discussed here. It is, therefore, proposed to pay particular attention to this demo- graphic characteristic in our subsequent analyses in the following chapters. AGE: Most of the older workers in Premier are urban—born, non- Hindus, and members of the lower castes if Hindus. The older workers have less education and work in the low status jobs and departments 57 of the plant. But mainly because of their longer service in Premier these workers earn higher wages. Finally, age is of course posi— tively related to marital status as well as number of children. There are no significant differences between younger and older work- ers in terms of occupational background prior to entering Premier. MARITAL STATUS: A higher proportion of the married workers are non—Hindus or, if Hindus, members of the lower castes. The married workers (in contrast to the unmarried) have less education. They are older, have more seniority, and earn higher wages. There is no relationship between marital status and such factors as rural-urban background, occupational background, and occupational status in the factory. NUMBER OF CHILDREN: The workers with more children are of course older, have more seniority, and earn higher wages. These workers are, typically, non—Hindus and, if Hindus, members of the lower castes. They have relatively less education and work in the low status de- partments of the plant. There is no significant relationship between number of children a worker has and such factors as rural-urban back— ground, occupational background, and occupational status. Conclusion The foregoing discussion may appear to be overly repetitious, but a closer examination of the material shows that each of the twelve profiles is just a little bit different from all others. Thus, while age and marital status are very closely related to each other, they still are different and their differences become clear when we dis- cuss the relationship of each with all other variables. S8 The several "profiles" of the Premier worker presented above describe the various characteristics of the work force only in gross terms. Yet, hopefully the reader will get an idea of the interrelationships of many dimensions in what is considered to be the least complicated manner. Here we attempt to draw an even more general picture by summarizing the foregoing presentation. The Hindu workers constitute about two-thirds of the total sample. This proportion roughly corresponds to the total factory work force as well as to the population of Greater Bombay. But the distribution of Hindu workers in various jobs and departments of the factory does not appear to be random. Compared to the non-Hindus, the Hindu workers are younger and possess lesser seniority in Premier, but they have relatively higher education. It appears from this that when the factory began its expansion program in the fifties, and began adding the "manufacturing" departments, a higher proportion of Hindus than non-Hindus were recruited at that time. Since the manu- facturing and maintenance operations required both experience in tech- nological work and certain amount of education, the new recruitees were usually younger persons. Now, although technological background is randomly distributed among Hindu and non-Hindu workers, such is not the case with education, which is higher among the Hindus, at least, among the Premier workers we studied. Thus, the relatively younger workers who were hired in the fif— ties and thereafter have more education. They are, typically, un- married and have fewer children if married. Most of the upper caste Hindus happen to be in this category. Such workers usually work in the middle status, manufacturing departments and the high status ' 4 \ . V l. ‘.. . . ‘ . . . \ _ - n , . v , . . 7 r\ . . n ~ e U ‘ ' V ‘ , . o ‘ o . . ,l‘ . , . r o , . . ’ 0 ‘ \ > v. . . . ' § . . ‘ ‘ I r . . , . A - . I . t . , , . , i r 1 ~ 0 . “ - l O U " . . ‘ \ . ' , o y 1 . . . ' u . \ ~ ~ . , I .‘ I t C ‘ ’ . . ‘ . ' . I , . 5 r ' - ~ , ‘ . . ‘ ‘ _ u . , A ‘ ' I ‘ r . D Vu. v . ‘ V ‘ h ' ‘ ‘ . . . , , .1 ' o I a . v . , x V , . \ . u t . . o \ - ¢ , . . , o , . ' ‘ ‘ ' -. . . s . . 4 « o . . . . . r ‘ , r _ - ~ g r . 59 departments like tool room, assembly repairs, etc., but rarely on the final assembly line or low‘status departments like it. In spite of their higher level of education, and upper caste affiliation, however, these more recently recruited young Hindu workers have not necessarily had previous experience in industrialdmanufacturing oc- cupations, nor do they come.from urban background. Such workers are, typically, rural born and they receive on-therjob training in Premier. Since wages are a function of length of service in Premier, the Hindu workers having relatively less seniority are earning lower wages, compared to the non-Hindus. There seems to be another rea- son for their earning lower wages. Even though the Hindus, typi- cally, work in high status departments of the factory, they are not necessarily working in high status jgb§;_ In fact, there is no sig- nificant relationship between occupational status and religion or between occupational status and caste status. The predominantly unskilled workers initially recruited in Pres mier were by and large urban-born, non-Hindus or members of lower castes if Hindus. These workers had relatively lower education. Today, those of the initially recruited workers who are still in Premier are, naturally, older, have.more seniority, are married, and have more children if married. Although these older, urbaneborn workers did not necessarily have previous experience in industrial- manufacturing occupations, they have gained prolonged on—therjob training and experience and, therefore, many of them have moved up the occupational status ladder in the factory. Most of these workers are still in the low status departments, but are working in high 6O status jobs. The high status departments are, typically, manned by the young, new recruitees. Having been with Premier for some ten years or longer, these older workers earn higher wages, com- pared to the young, new recruitees. Regardless of differences in age and length of service in Premier, such factors as level of education and background in indus- trial-manufacturing occupations are positively related both to each other and also to occupational status in the factory. Most of the workers who have this kind of background happen to be Hindus. Thus, whereas not all high-caste Hindus hold high status jobs in Premier, those among them who are urban-born and who have previous experience in industrial-manufacturing occupations are usually in high status jobs, irrespective of age. Similarly, occupational background being randomly distributed among Hindus and non-Hindus, those among the non-Hindus who have more education and previous experience in indus— trial-manufacturing occupations occupy high status jobs, regardless of their age. In the following two chapters we will present analysis of the data. While the major independent variable is occupational status, we intend to examine the role of occupational status in shaping the work experience of workers in relation to the many variables discussed in the present chapter. CHAPTER IV OCCUPATIONAL STATUS AND WORKER SATISFACTION This chapter will present data to test the hypotheses already proposed regarding occupational status and its impact on worker satisfaction. There are five inter-related "areas" of work experi- ence that shall be examined here. The chapter has been organized around discussion of each of these five dimensions: . Situs Satisfaction . Satisfaction with the Company . Satisfaction with the Occupation . Occupational Aspirations . Job Satisfaction U14>LONH Our analysis will begin with an examination of the relation- ship between occupational status and satisfaction with each of the five "areas" of work experience mentioned above. Next, we propose to investigate if worker satisfaction is also related to some of the background and demographic variables discussed in the previous chapter. It has already been shown that occupational status is definitely related to several other variables and, there— fore, our final task will be to "control" for those of the inde- pendent variables which, like occupational status, are associated with worker satisfaction. The end result of this analysis, hope— fully, will be to determine the relative importance of occupational status vis-a-vis other factors in contributing to worker satisfaction. Worker satisfaction has been measured through a series of questions, both direct and indirect as well as structured and open— ended, which were later combined, wherever possible, to form indexes 61 62 of satisfaction with each of the five "areas" of work experience mentioned above. We made the following assumptions in index con— structions: (1) Several questions designed to measure work satis— faction are better for the purpose than a single question; (2) The degree to which these questions correlate with one another provides some tentative evidence that there may be such a variable as "work satisfaction" at work in the social world; (3) The summed values of these inter-related items can function as the measurement of that variable; and (4) The degree to which these measurements re- late to other measurements - beyond the reasonable limits of chance - provides further basis for confidence that a variable (e.g., "work satisfaction") has been identified and that it has some interpreta— tive value.1 1. Situs Satisfaction The economic system is usually divided by social scientists into three main sectors: the primary sector (or, agriculture), the secondary sector (or, industry), and the tertiary sector (or, commerce and services). During the recent years, many writers have examined the role of "labor force commitment" in economic development of a society. It is argued by some of these writers that the industrial "way of life" is characterized by a complex of attitudes and behaviors and that to the extent that a society's labor force lacks those attitudes and behaviors we can account for its lack of economic development. Much of the literature on 1. F. B. Waisanen and Jerome T. Durlak, A Survey of Attitudes Re- lated to CostgéRiggnqupulation Dynamics, San Jose, Costa Rica: American International Association for Economic and Social Development, 1966. 63 this subject is, however, speculative and what little empirical evidence there is comes primarily from anthropological field stud- ies, which are usually studies of small rural or mining communi— ties. Thus, there is no systematic attempt at cross-national com- parisons to show in what ways, and to what extent, the attitudes and behavior patterns of labor force differ from one society to another, at different levels of development. While this study is not an investigation of labor force commit~ ment per se, it is maintained that study of "situs satisfaction" " at least is directly relevant to the general theme of "commitment, in so far as the workers' attitudes concerning modern factory work are concerned. We propose to test the hypothesis that occupational status is positively related to situs satisfaction. An index of situs satisfaction was constructed by combining seven items which were found to possess sufficient internal con- sistency. These seven items are listed below: Situs Satisfaction léfll High 1. If you could go back to the age of 15 and start life over again, would you choose an occupation other than factory work? Yes No 2. With the same net income, which of the following types of work would Office Factory you prefer? WOrk WOrk 3. Suppose that the following three were jobs with the same annual in— come: an office worker, a skilled Other Factory factory worker, and a small inde- WOrker pendent farmer ... which of these three do you believe is the occupa- tion that gives most satisfaction? 4. ... Which of these three do you be- lieve is the occupation most desir- Other Factory able? WOrker 64 Situs Satisfaction L911 High 5. ... Which of these three do you be- lieve is the Occupation most respected? Other Factory Worker 6. Compared with other types of work, hOW' Fair/ do you rate your occupation? Poor Good 7. Of these occupations (including present Industrial- job) which one did you like most? Other ‘manufacturing The inter-item associations for the seven items listed above are given in Table 2. The statistic used in this table is Contin- gency Coefficient (C), after correction. Except in one case (that is, the association between items 2 and 6) all other associations are sig— nificant at .05 level or better. The seven—item.index of situs satisfaction yielded eight score types, 0 through 7, which were then grouped into three categories as follows: Index of Situs SatisfaCtion Number of Cases Low (scores 0, l, 2) 80 Medium (scores 3, 4) 86 High (scores 5, 6, 7) _£fi;_ Total 228 Thirty-four workers in the sample failed to respond to all seven items under discussion. Hence, our measurement of situs satisfac- tion is based only on 228 cases for which responses to all seven items are available. The association between occupational status, our major inde— pendent variable, and situs satisfaction is shown in Table 3. Clearly, these two variables are related to each other. Whereas almost three—fifths of the "low" status workers ShDW'a 10W‘16V61 65 of situs satisfaction, the corresponding proportion for the "high" status workers is less than one-fourth, Conversely, a little over one-third of the "high" status workers, compared to a little over one—tenth of the "low" status workers, are highly satisfied with their present (industrial) sector of employment. * Table 2. Inter-item associations for index of situs satisfaction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 — .415 .394 .276 .204 .444 .264 2 — .335 .351 .224 .156** .299 3 - .680 .394 .205 .225 4 - .541 .324 .306 5 — .322 .334 6 - .267 7 .— fi —v * The items 1 through 7 as listed in this table are in the same order as they appear on the preceding page. The statistic used in this table in Contingency Coefficient, C, after correction. **The association in this case (between items 2 and 6) is significant at .20 level. However, except for this one case, all other rela— tionships as depicted in this table are significant, at least at .05 level. 66 * Table 3. Occupational status and situs satisfaction Index of Situs Occupational Status Satisfaction Low Medium High Total Low 57% 28% 23% 36% Medium 31 43 43 39 High 12 29 34 25 Total 100 100 100 100 Number of Cases(74) (75) (79) (228) x2 - 23.918 d.f. = 4 P<.001 E = .418** *In this, and in subsequent tables, data are presented as rounded percentages, which add up to 100 when added down for each column. **In addition to Chi-square, we will use Contingency Coefficient, C, after correction, as a measure of the extent of association between two sets of attributes. The use of the second statis- tic, 5, will be limited to only those tables where the relation— ship between two variables is significant at 10% (P‘<310) or better. Despite its many limitations, Contingency Coefficient is particularly appropriate for the kind of data we have, which are often only categorical (nominal scale). The function of "correction" in this case is to standardize C for tables of different sizes, that is, with different columns and/or rows. In the present case, therefore, the hypothesis that occupational status is positively related to situs satisfaction finds overwhelm- ing support from the data. As the industrial worker moves up in the occupational hierarchy, his satisfaction with and commitment to the industrial sector of employment increases. It is the routine manual worker, and to a lesser extent the machine operator, who prefers non-factory work over factory employment. While it is true that a knowledge of the occupational status of a worker enables us to predict, with reasonable accuracy, whether 67 or not he is satisfied with his present sector of employment, we cannot be sure merely on the basis of this evidence that occupa- tional status "determines" situs satisfaction or dissatisfaction. It was found, for example, that situs satisfaction could also be predicted, with similar accuracy, from a knowledge of the worker's (l) wages, (2) occupational background, (3) level of education, or (4) rural-urban background. The relationships between situs satis- faction and each of the four factors listed above are presented in Table 4 below. Table 4. Association between situs satisfaction and some of the independent variables Relationship between situs satisfaction and . . . X2 d.f. P C 1. Wages (positive) 6.722 2 <:.05 .247 2. Occupational background 12.711 2 <(.01 .346 (positive) 3. Education (positive) 7.375 2 <:.05 .258 4. Rural-urban background 8.569 2 <:.02 .319 (positive) Here, then, we have a situation in which situs satisfaction is related positively to two occupational variables (occupational status and wages) and to three background factors (occupational background, level of education, and rural-urban background). As was mentioned in the previous chapter, most of these five variables are related to each other. The problem, therefore, becomes one of establishing the relative importance of each of these five factors in influencing situs satisfaction. It must be noted here that 68 our main concern in this study is not to present a thorough analy- sis of worker satisfaction per se, but to examine the role of oc— cupational status in affecting worker satisfaction. Partly due to this reason and also because our dependent variables are quite a few, the analysis will, of necessity, be somewhat limited in scope. The interrelationships among the six variables under dis- cussion are presented in Table 5 below. Table 5. Interrelationships among situs satisfaction and other variables* Occ. Occ. Rur- Sit.- Status Wages Bgd. Educ. Urb. sat. l g, 3 4 5 6 Occupational — .360 .382 .330 .352 .418 Status (functions) 1 Wages 2 — .284(—).368 .356 .247 Occupational Background 3 - .246 .259 .346 Education 4 - n.s. .258 Rural-Urban - .319 Background 5 Situs Satisfaction 6 — *The statistic used in this table is Contingency Coefficient, C, after correction. Except where otherwise indicated by "n.s." (not significant), the values for C as indicated above are statistically significant at .05 level or better. The sign (-) means that the relationship in question is inverse. Since the six variables mentioned above are inter-related with one another our next task is to investigate whether or not the original relationship between occupational status and situs 69 satisfaction is "independent" of the influence of the other four variables. This was done by introducing each of the four vari- ables as the "test" factor, or the "control" variable. Due to the limitations of small sample size, each of the control vari- ables was dichotomized. The new relationships between the inde— pendent variable (occupational status) and the dependent variable (situs satisfaction) produced as a result of controlling for third variable are presented in Table 6 through 9. As will be noticed in these tables, it is only among the lOWb paid workers, the less educated, those without previous experience in industrial—manufacturing occupations, or the rural born that the original relationship between occupational status and situs satisfaction holds. In other words, there is no relationship be— tween our independent and dependent variables among the workers earning higher wages, the more educated, those with experience in industrial-manufacturing occupations, or the urban born. We consider this a significant finding in that we have "specified" the conditions under which the relationship between occupational status and situs satisfaction holds. The above findings (though helpful in specifying the ori— ginal relationship) nevertheless come as a surprise. In line with our theoretical posture maintained here, we would expect that the Industrial Man is the worker who had more education, earns higher wages, has prior exposure to the industrial-manufacturing sector of employment, and is urban born. Such a worker, we would further suggest, is more committed to the factory employment be— cause of his longer period of socialization and greater rewards. 7O NON. u m N u .N.O OO.V O NNN.O u OON. u m N n .O.O NOO.V N NNO.NN u ONO. u O O u .O.O NOO.V N ONO.mN u coauomwmfiumm mouflm mom mome mommz pom moumum Hmooaummsooo coauommmaumm woufim pom msumum Hmcowummsooo AN AN Aa "consume mfinmcowumamm O u .O.O Om.v O ONN.O u Nx qu. u o q u .m.o Hoo.v m aom.wH u NN AOOV AOOV AONO AONV AONNV AONV AOOV AOOV OOH OON OOH OOH OOH OOH OON OOH ON ON ON ON NN ON ON O OO O4 O3 NO ON ON OO OO NON NON NON NNO NNO NON NON NOO mmuoe «mwwm asflOmz 36a Nance emwm asfiOmz zoo mDHoH Hmaoaumusoo he cOHuommeumm moufiw mom monoum Hmooauwnmooo .w manna 73 coauommmfiumm msuwm OHN. u m N u .0.0 NO.V_O OO0.0 n NN Nam Oasoumxomm OOOOOIHOOOO AN monouwxomm omnunlaouom NON. n m N u .O.O HO.v O OOH.NH u NN Oam NOOOOO HmaoHumOsooo AN coauommmfiumm moufim OHO. u O O u .O.O HOO.v O OHO.NN u Nx Nam OOOOOO HmaoHOOOsooo HH "ammsumn OHOmcoHOmHOO ONO. u m O u .O.O ON.v O NON.O n NN .O.O HO.V.O OON.OH u NN HONO HNNO HHNO AOHO ANOO HOOO HOOO mmmmO O6 OmOasz OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH Hmuoa ON OO ON NH ON ON NH OOOO ON ON ON OO NO OO ON asOOmz NON NOH NON NOO NON NON NOO 36H HOO6O OOHO aOHOmz 36H .xmwwm, asHOoz 36H coOuomOOHumml. mDHaH ma mmHHMHHm> .umuumn no Hm>MH mO. um uamuHmHsOHm mum mHnmu msu :H OwuonmO mm mmHanOHumHmu HHm .AuamonName uocv :.m.:: OH OmumoHOaN omHsumnuo mumns unmoxm .GONuomuuoo umuwm .O .uamHonwmoo NoamOaHuaoo OH mHnmu mHnu :N wow: UHumNumum OSHO O GOHuommmHumO .msouo NON.AIV I m QOHumonwm ONm.AIV OOO. I O msumum mummo .m.a NHO.H-O OON.N-O u N amOOHOOO O6 .62 .m.c OOO.AIV ONN.AIV OON. n N mO< ONN.A|V ONO. .m.a .m.e HON.AIV I H maumum .msooo O O O m N H :OHuommmHumO .moooo GOHumosvm mummo awOOHHsO mO< msumum .Osuoo mmHanum> umnuo msom Onm GOHuomOmNumm HOGOHOMOSUUO macaw manmaOHumHmuumudH .ON mHan an 98 OON. n m n .0.0 OH.v m OHH.O m Nx =0HuommeumO HmCOHummsooO Oam mO< Am HON. u w u .0.0 NO.v m ONN.HH u Nx mO< Oam msumum HOdOHumOSUUO AN GOHuommmfiumO HmGOHummsouo ONN. u m u .0.0 mO.v m ON0.0H u Nx cam msumum HOOOHummsooo NH ”comaumn OHSmGOHumHmm O u .w.O ON.v m OHm.O n Nx O u .0.0 ON.v_m OOO.N n Nx AOOV AONO AONV Ammv AmnHv AOOV AHOV HOOV mmmmo mo uwnasz OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH HOOOH NO OO NO OO ON NN ON OO OOOO ON ON HO NH Nm Om ON ON ESNOOE NHN NHN NNH NON NOO NON NOO NON 30H HOOOH OOHO EDHOoz 30H HmOOH SOHO ssfiwmz 30H GOHuommeumm ODHmH ou wdfimuooom.wa0HuommmHumm chowumdsooo mam maumum HOGOHumamuoO .ON OHOOO 102 confidence in suggesting that the original relationship holds only in the latter case (fewer children) than in the former (lower edu- cation). Tables 21 and 23 will show that when age and caste are intro— duced as the "control" variables the original relationship between occupational status and occupational satisfaction disappeared in each case! In other words, occupational status is not related to satisfaction with the present occupation either among the young or the old, nor among the lower caste or upper caste workers. The negative relationship between occupational status and oc— cupational satisfaction (Tables 17 and 18) and the findings in Tables 21 through 24 cast a strong doubt on accepting the hypothesis that it is indeed the occupational status of a worker that affects his satisfaction or dissatisfaction. with the present occupation. It appears that whatever relationship is found between those two vari- ables is perhaps caused by some other variable(s) that affect(s) them both. If we examine occupational satisfaction in terms of mobility orientation of the worker, it would appear that those who are upwardly mobile are less satisfied with their present occupa- tion. Attempts were made to probe further the variety of situations in which occupational status was inversely related to occupational satisfaction. It turned out that most of those situations pointed in the direction of the pattern of occupational mobility of the worker. Table 25 summarizes some of those situations. It may be recalled from our discussion in the previous chapter that the workers with the above characteristics are the ones more recently recruited who are, typically, working in the production 103 departments as machine operators. For most of these workers their present occupation represents the highest point in terms of upward occupational mobility. But since they entered the firm relatively recently and also because they do not have prior experience in industrialdmanufacturing occupations, most of them are earning lower wages. The company has classified these workers as "semi-skilled". Among such.middle—status workers, therefore, we find a negative re— lationship between occupational status and occupational satisfaction. Table 25. Characteristics of the workers among whom occupational status is inversely related to satisfaction with the present occupation 2 Characteristics of the Workers X d.f. P C 1. Low Wages 19.729 4 < .001 .465 2. Non-Industrial/Manufacturing Background 12.399 4 <:.02 .375 3. Low Seniority in Premier 11.755 4 (.02 .347 4. Fewer Children 9.573 4 “<305 .309 5. Married 10.423 4 ‘<205 .294 6. Upwardly MObile in the Past 10.008 4 ‘<.05 .355 7. Semi-Skilled (As Per Company's Classification) 15.607 4 <:(H. .466 More than anything else it is the disrepancy between their status and wages that seems to made this group dislike their pre- sent occupation. The present hiring policy of the firm being what it is, a new recruitee is usually hired as an unskilled or a semi- skilled worker, but seldom as a skilled worker. There is, however, 104 hardly any difference in the starting wages of an unskilled and a semi—skilled worker. It is only after a number of years of em- ployment in the firm, that is, after a semi-skilled worker has earned several annual increments, that his wages begin to show a marked difference from those of an unskilled worker. Before that happens, the newly-recruited worker, who has the characteristics being dis- cussed here, is generally dissatisfied with the fact that his wages are not commensurate with his occupational activities. The findings in this section, among other things, suggest that a worker responds differently to the different "areas" of his work experience. We found, for example, that worker satisfaction with the industrial sector of employment is influenced by factors other than those that influence his satisfaction with the present occu- pation. It is possible that a worker who is satisfied with his situs is at the same time dissatisfied with his occupation, and vice versa. As the foregoing analysis shows, the hypothesis that occupa- tional status is positively related to occupational satisfaction does not find support in this case. Our finding of a negative re— lationship between these two variables is not only at variance with the theory being examined here but also with the existing evidence on this subject. Faced with this contradiction, therefore, we set out to re—examine our measure of occupational satisfaction. The index of occupational satisfaction, it may be recalled, is based on the following two items which were found to be positively re- lated to each other: 105 1. Is there anything that you do not like about your present occupation? 2. On the whole, how satisfied do you feel about being a factory worker? In spite of the fact that the above two items are positively related to each other, each item seems to product a slightly dif- ferent pattern of responses when related to other factors. While responses to the first item (anything you disliked about the pre- sent occupation?) were found to be related to most of the indepen- dent variables discussed in Chapter III, the responses to the second item (whether satisfied as a factory worker?) are related to none of them! It is conceivable, therefore, that the second item (which, unlike the first item, is a direct question) either does not elicit the "occupational satisfaction" or fails to obtain uniform responses from the workers studied. Any relationship that we found between index of occupational satisfaction and other variables, as discussed in the foregoing pages, was undoubtly the function of only one (the first) of the two items that constitute that index. We decided under the circumstances to use only the first of the two items in order to re—examine the relationship between occupational satisfac— tion and other variables. A.worker's satisfaction with his present occupation (as mea- sured through his response to the indirect question "Is there any— thing you do not like about your present occupation?") is related to the several factors mentioned below: Occupational Satisfaction is Occupational Satisfaction is positively_related to: negatively related to: l. Wages 1. Occupational Status 2. Age 2. Religion 3. Seniority 3. Education 4. Number of Children 4. Occupational Background 106 Thus, while wages, age and the related factors like seniority and number of children account for a positive relationship with occu- pational satisfaction, the other four variables are inversely related to occupational satisfaction. These findings are essen— tially in agreement with those already reported in this section, that is, when the two-item index was used to measure occupational satisfaction. This is so because the relationship between index of occupational satisfaction and other variables, as already noted, was in fact being produced by the single item used in the revised measure. We may conclude from the foregoing that revising our measure of occupational satisfaction, that is, using a single item instead of the two-item index, has not altered either the strength or the nature of the relationship between occupational satisfaction and other variables. We must reject the hypothesis that occupational status of a worker is positively related to his satisfaction with the present occupation. 4. Occupational Aspirations Here we propose to test the hypothesis that occupational sta- tus is positively related to occupational aspirations. Although occupational aspirations do not directly constitute "work experience", which is the subject of this chapter, the level of occupational as— pirations does provide an indirect measure of a worker's satisfaction with his occupation. Thus, for example, a satisfied worker is ex- pected to have high aspirations concerning his occupational future, while the dissatisfied worker will probably manifest his dissatis— satisfaction through a low level of occupational aspirations. The 107 following two items were used to construct an index of occupational aspirations: 1. What is the highest job you think you can get in this company? - same as at present - group leader/ highest pay in the present grade — supervisor, foreman or above 2. How much do you think it would pay (per month)? - same as at present - up to Rupees 300 per month - between Rupees 300 and 400 per month - over Rupees 400 per month The above two items were found to be positively related to each other.9 That is, the workers who aspired to become foreman some day were generally the same who aspired for higher wages, and vice versa. The index of occupational aspirations based on these two items yielded six score types, 0 through 5, which were grouped into three categories as follows: Index of Occupational Number of Aspirations Cases Low (scores 0, l) 61 Medium (scores 2, 3) 91 High (scores 4, 5) _J£§L_ Total 255 We found Premier workers having generally high occupational aspirations, which is probably a function of the high wages and the prestige of the firm they work for. But Lambert found more or less the same level of occupational aspirations among the Poona workers, at least for one of the five factories that he studied. The first of the two items included in our index of 9. The relationship between the two items is: Xzi= 132.501; d.f. = 2; P<.001; C = .852 108 occupational aspirations is the same as the one used by Lambert in his study, that is, "What is the highest job you think you can get in this fatory?" Lambert found that the aspirations level of workers varied from factory to factory, but that it was the highest for the most modern and technologically more advanced of the five factories, that is, the engine factory. The level of occupational aspirations as obtained for the workers we studied is compared below with Lambert's findings in Poona: Level of Occupational Premier Poona Workers (Lambert)10 Aspirations WOrkers Engine Factory All Factories Supervisor 35.4% 35.9% 24.4% Higher P & M rank 40.5 16.5 13.2 Same rank 24.1 47.6 62.4 Sample size (257) (103) (3,850) The relationship between occupational status and occupational aspirations is shown in Table 26. The proportion of those with "high" occupational aspirations is 27 percent among the low—status workers, compared to 61 percent among the high—status workers. Thus, in this case, our findings support the hypothesis that the higher the occupational status of a worker, the higher will be his occupational aspirations. Since occupational status is related to a number of variables like wages, education, age, etc., it is to be expected that a num- ber of those variables would also be related to occupational as- pirations. Of the twelve variables discussed in Chapter III occu- pational aspirations were found to be related to the following six which are presented in Table 27. 10. Lambert, op. cit., p. 185. Table 26. 109 Occupational status and occupational aspirations Index of Occupational Occupational Status Aspirations Low Medium High Total Low ... 30% 27% 15% 24% Medium ... 43 40 36 High ... 27 33 40 Total ... 100 100 100 Number of Cases ... (86) (82) (87) (255) x2 = 28.853 d.f. = 4 P< .001 E = .396 Table 27. Association between occupational aspirations and some other variables Relationship Between Occupational Aspirations and ... X2 P E 1. Wages (positive) 14. 205 < .001 .335 2. Age (negative) 19.136 < .001 .385 3. Religion (positive) 10.147 <..Ol .285 4. Seniority (positive) 9.593 < .01 .277 5. Education (positive) 17.172 41.001 .366 6. Rural-Urban Background 12.166 .<.01 .357 (positive) Except for age (which is inversely related to occupational aspirations) the relationships between occupational aspirations and the other variables under discussion are positive. Thus, workers with high occupational aspirations are either earning higher wages, are Hindus, have more seniority in Premier, have 110 higher education, come from urban background, or are in high status jobs. But such workers are, typically, young which ac— counts for the negative relationship between age and occupational aspirations. It has already been noted that occupational status is nega- tively related to age. In other words, a higher proportion of younger workers are in high status jobs in the factory. And occupational status is positively related to each of the followe ing variables: wages, education, and ruraldurban background. In view of this, the relationship between occupational status and occupational aspirations could be caused by any one or more of these other variables — namely, wages, age, education, and rural— urban background. There is no relationship between occupational status and religion or seniority. The fact that both religion and seniority are positively related to occupational aspirations is probably because religion and seniority are associated with age, education, and rural-urban background. In other words, Hindus are typically younger and have more education. Most of the Hindu workers, however, come from rural background, which ac— cording to our findings should account for a lower level of occu- ' pational aspirations. Since the Hindu workers have relatively higher level of aspirations than the non—Hindus in spite of the ' fact that a higher proportion of them comes from rural background, it probably is their higher level of education (rather than rural— urban background) which is responsible for high aspirations among this group. The inter—relationships of all these eight variables, including the dependent variable "occupational aspirations," are presented in Table 28. 111 .mmuo>afi ma aoflummsu GH manmaowumamu onu umnu momma AIV swam may .Houuon Ho Ho>mH mo. um unmoHMfiame mum manna wwnu a“ oouofimoo mm mmfinmsowumaou Ham Anamowmaawww uoav :.m.a: he woumowoaa smashosuo muons umooxm .aofiuomuuoo Houmm .0 .uamfioamwmou hoaomsauaoo ma manwu menu ca com: oHumHumum ways w maofiumuwmm< I Hmaoaummaooo n oqsouwxomm Nmm. I cmnHDIHmuam mom. .m.a I o aowumoaom new. .m.: qm¢.AIv I m zufiuofiomm mmm. aNNNAIV «mu. .m.a I s nonmaamm mwm.AIv .m.c. mmo.AIv mmo. .m.: I m ow< mmm. 0mm. mom.AIv mmw. .m.s «we. I . N mome mmm. Nmm. 0mm. .m.a .m.a HwN.AIV com. I a msumum Hmaoaummsooo w n o n q m N H .mumm< .ooo .nuDIusm .osom %uHu0fisom sowmflamm ow< momms maumum .ooo «mmHnMflum> “mauo mo meow van macaumufimwm HmaOHumosooowwdoaw measmaoaumHoHHMuaH .wm manna 112 The relationship between occupational status and occupational aspirations was examined by introducing, as "controls", each of the six other variables that were found to be related to occupa- tional aspirations. The results of that three—dimensional analysis are shown in Tables 29 through 34. The original relationship be- tween occupational status and occupational aspirations was found to be "independent" of wages, age, seniority, and level of educa- tion. In other words, even when we held each of those four vari- ables constant the original relationship persisted. We may con- clude from this that even though occupational status is related to each of the four factors (wages, age, seniority, and education) and to some extent is a reflection of those very same factors, its impact on the level of occupational aspirations of workers is more or less independent of those factors. Thus, the workers who are in high-status jobs have higher occupational aspirations regardless of their wages, age, length of employment, or level of education. A few qualifications to the above general statement may be in order here. We noted before that age was inversely related to occupational aspirations. This was because a higher proportion of the younger workers happened to be in high status jobs. When controlled for age, therefore, we found that occupational status is positively related to occupational aspirations for both the younger and the older workers. But the original relationship was found to be stronger among the younger workers, compared to the older workers. Thus, it appears that although with the introduc- tion of age as the "test" factor the original relationship between 113 ONN. u m N u .H.O HOO.V m mON.OH u Nx mcoHumuHOm< HOOOHOOOOOOO Oam mummz Hm OON. u m N u .N.O HOO.v m HHO.NH u Nx momma Oam msumum HOOOHHOOOOOO AN mdoaumuwmm< Hmcowummsooo OON. u w O u .H.O HOO.v O NOO.ON u Nx Oam magnum HO¢OHH~OOOOO AH "ammsumn OHHOOOHumHmm OON. n m OON. u p O u .0.0 mO.v O OOm.OH n Nx O u .H.O mO.v_m OOO.HH u Nx HHHHO Asmv HONO AONO AmsHO Ammo Ammv HOmO mommu Ho Hmaaaz OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH Hmuoa Nm HO HO ON NN mm ON NN emHe NN NN HN ON ms NN Hm OO aOHOmz NON NOH Nmm NON NNN NOH NHN NON 30H Hmuoa eme asHemz OOH Hmuoa emHm auHemz 30H mOOHumuHOm< mOemH HmaOHumunvo he mQOHumanmm HmaOHummaooo cam msummwnmmGOHummaooo nww3umn cOHumHoomm< .mm OHOMH 118 Nmm. Nmm. Omm. U N n .M.O Ho.v m OOH.NH U N u .m.@ Ho.v m OOH.NH II M II N 0 q u .m.O HOO.v m mmw.wN NM mcoHumuHmm< HmaoHummsooo Ocm Onsouwxomm amnHDIHmuam Am Ossouwxomm amp“: IHmusm Ocm msumum Hmcowummnuoo AN maOHumuHam< HmGOHumndouo cam msumum HmcoHummsooo AH "cmm3umn mHsmGoHumHom NOO. u O O u .O.O ON.v O OON.O u NN O u .O.O HOO.v O OOO.OH u NN NHOO NNOO NOOO NONO NOOHO NONO NONO NOOO OOOOO OO OOOOOz OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH HOOOH NO OO OO OO ON OO NN OH OOH: ON NN OO OH OO HO OO OO OOHOOz NON NOH NNO NOO NON NOH NNN NHO OOH HOOON OOHm. aOHOOz OOH HOOOO OOH: OOOOOz OOH OOOHOOOHOOO OOHOOO HOzOHHOOOOOO OOHOOO HOzOHHOOOOOO HOOOHOOOOOOO OO OOOOH zmom zao>aH woonuonnwwmz can vanouwxomm Hmaowummsooo wnsoumxomm HmGOHumaaooo can maumum Hmaoaumasouo uaoam>ao>aH woonuonnwfioz new maumum HmGOHummsooo Am AN AH ”cowsuon mafimaOHumHom N n .m.@ om.v m mnH.N u NN N u .m.@ om.v.m Nmm.N u N% NONV AOOO NOOO AOHO AOOHO AOOO AOOO AOOO OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH HO OO OO NN NO ON NO NO NOO NNO NNO NON NOO NOO NOO NOO HOOOO .Omwm asHOmz son Hmuoa OOHO asHOmz son mDHao>sH voonuonnwwmz mo NovnH meuo3 mo vssouwxoma HmsOHumndooo hp usoam>Ho>sfi woosuonmmwma can maumum HMsOHummnooo .oo MHAMH 174 involvement. In fact, we introduced each of the several independent variables listed in Chapter III as "control" variables to find out if occupational status has some impact on neighborhood involvement under certain conditions. The results of this type of analysis show that under Egng_of the conditions investigated is occupational status re- lated to neighborhood involvement. To the extent that the index of neighborhood involvement as here used represents a person's integra— tion into the social life of his neighborhood, we may conclude that except for the occupational background of a person none of the other variables can help us predict his involvement. In a study of 648 Detroit males from 21 to 55 years of age, Wilensky has shown that men with more "orderly work histories" have on the average stronger attachments (l) to community organizations and (2) to relatives, friends, and neighbors.6 The orderly work his- tory is defined by Wilensky in terms of the extent to which a worker's work history constitutes a "career" rather than a succession of un— related jobs. According to Wilensky, "Participation in community life is a natural extension of participation in the labor market: orderly and pleasant experiences in the latter provide motive and opportunity for the former... chaotic experiences in the economic order foster a retreat from both work and the larger communal life."7 The positive relationship between occupational background and neighborhood involvement as found in this study supports to some ex- tent the thesis proposed by Wilensky. As Table 61 shows, workers who 6. Harold L. Wilensky, "Orderly Careers and Social Participation: The Impact of Work History on Social Integration in the Middle Class," American Sociological Review, 26 (August, 1961) pp. 521-539. 7. Ibid. 175 are more highly involved in the affairs of their neighborhoods come mostly from background experience in industrialdmanufacturing occupa- tions. We can describe this group, in Wilensky's terms, as having an "orderly work history" in that factory work constitutes a "career" for them. Table 61. Association between occupational background and neighborhood involvement Occupational Background Agricultural Industrial— Index of Neighborhood or Business Manufacturing Involvement & Services Total Low ... 53% 38% 48% High ... 47 62 52 Total ... 100 100 100 Number of Cases ... (138) (78) (216) 2 _. X = 4.164 d.f. = l P<.05 C = .216 In order to further test the connection between occupational back- ground and neighborhood involvement, we introduced occupational status as a "control" variable. When occupational status is held constant, the relationship between occupational background and neighborhood in- volvement disappears in all but one case, the craftsmen. We may con- clude from this evidence that although we can predict the level of neighborhood involvement on the basis of a knowledge of the occupational background of Premier workers, there is no direct and clear-cut re— lationship between the two. Although no direct relationship was found between level of educa- tion and neighborhood involvement, it was discovered that, when controlled 176 for occupational status, level of education is positively related to neighborhood involvement among the machine operators. This group of workers, of course, has the highest level of education compared to either craftsmen or the assemblers. We failed to find support for Wilensky's other argument which suggests that "pleasant work experiences" lead to participation in community life. To the extent that work satisfaction reflects plea- sant work experiences, we can say that among the workers studied there is no relationship between neighborhood involvement on the one hand and any of the indexes of worker satisfaction on the other. Thus, no links were found to exist between the occupational and non- occupational lives of the workers studied. 4. Community Involvement Following the same logic as that mentioned for neighborhood in- volvement, we expect that occupational status is positively related to worker's involvement in the affairs of his community of residence. An index of community involvement was constructed on the basis of the following four items: 1. Do you like living in this community? — no, other — yes 2. (If the respondent reads newspapers): Are you more interested in local news or national news? - national - local 3. Do you participate in activities of any organizations? (exclude unions) - none - yes, one organization - yes, more than one organization 177 4. In your opinion, what are the most important problems facing your community of residence (town, city)? - don't know - there are none — problems mentioned The distribution of workers in terms of their scores for the index of community involvement is below: Index of Community Involvement Number of Cases Low (scores 0 - 3) 56 Medium (score 4) 79 High (scores 5 - 7) _JflL_ Total 226 The relationship between occupational status and community in- volvement is shown in Table 62 below. In this case there is no re- lationship between these two variables and, therefore, we reject the hypothesis that occupational status is positively related to community involvement. Table 62. Occupational status and community involvement Index of Community Occupational Status Involvement LOW’ Medium High Total Low ... 33% 23% 20% 25% Medium ... 34 32 38 35 High ... 33 45 42 40 Total ... 100 100 100 100 Number of Cases ... (67) (74) (85) (226) X = 4.309 d.f. = 4 P<.50 178 Among the twelve variables discussed in Chapter III, education is the only factor that seems to affect community involvement.8 Generally speaking, the higher the level of education, the greater the community involvement. Since level of education is also posi- tively associated with occupational status within the factory, we used "education" as the control variable in further examining the relationship between occupational status and community involvement. _' _ whim—.y ,. As Table 63 shows, community involvement does not appear to be a function of occupational status at all. -A— L341. . Although it is quite clear from the above that occupational WP status of a worker does not affect his involvement in the affairs of his community of residence, either directly or when controlled for a third factor "education," it still remains to be seen whether level of education affects community involvement independently of occupational status. To examine the latter possibility we cross- tabulated education against community involvement, holding occupa- tional status constant. If the relationship between education and community involve- ment was independent of the influence of occupational status, we would expect that for each of the three occupational status levels education is related to community involvement. This, however, is not the case for, when controlled for occupational status, the relationship between education and community involvement holds only for the middle status workers and disappears for both the low sta— tus and the high status workers. In other words, it is only among 8. Education is positively related to community involvement: x2 = 12.595 d.f. = 2 P<.01 c = .335 179 ryuli‘1 ..Frrrfll .. HP mmm. n p N u .m.O HO.v m mam.NH u Nx ucmam>Ho>eH NAuHHSanu Oam aOHumosvm Am Omm. u w N n .m.O HOO.vm ONH.OH n Nx QOHumoaOm cam mnumum HOGOHummsooO AN unmam>Ho>cH huHasaaou O u .w.O Om.v m OOm.O n Nx cam msumum HmcoHummsooo aH "somzumn eHsm:0HumHmm O u .m.O Om.v m oom.m n NM O u .m.O Om.v m OOO.N u Nx AOOHO HOS GOO AONO AONHO $3 83 $3 398 NO .8852 OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH Hmuoa OO OO om OO mm mm mm NN smHm Om HO mm on mm mm mN om EDHOmz NOH NOH NHH NON NOm NON NOO Nmm 30H Hmuoe Ame anHuoz 30H HmuoH nmmw ESHOOE 30H unmam>Ho>aH mDHmH Hmaowumuswm hp unmem>Ho>aH hqusaaoo Oem maumum HMGOHumnsooo ammaumn GOHOMHoomm< .mo MHan 180 the machine operators that education is positively related to com— munity involvement and, as far as the other two groups of workers are concerned, those two variables are not related to each other. We may conclude from the above that although occupational sta— tus is not directly related to community involvement, it does seem to have an indirect effect upon the relationship between level of education and community involvement. As previously noted, the machine Operators in Premier have more education than either the assemblers or the craftsmen. But the higher level of education among the machine Operators is a function of age (they are younger than either the low status or the high status workers) rather than that of the demands of their work tasks. The manufacturing departments in Premier have been the last to be established and their work force has been more recently hired, compared to the other departments in the factory. Education was found to be the only variable related to community involvement, but when controlled for occupational status even educa- tion does not prove to be a good predictor of community involvement among all workers. As in the case of neighborhood involvement, it is only among the machine operators that education seems to affect a worker's involvement in the affairs of his community of residence. Since there is no relationship among either the assemblers or the craftsmen, it is possible that the relationship found between educa- tion and community involvement (among the machine operators, that is) is in fact a function of some yet unknown factor(s). Community involvement (like neighborhood involvement already discussed in the preceding section) is an area of experience that lies outside the realm of work. We had expected that a person's 181 status at work would affect his life activities outside the plant as well. However, no such straight relationship exists between the work and non—work activities. The fact that not a single occupational (that is, work related) variable is associated with community involvement as used in this study suggests that perhaps there is little overlap between the two sectors of life activities. This absence of a relationship between the two areas is produced, among other things, by the fact that Premier workers do not live in any one or more workers' colony or colonies, where the patterns of interaction developed in the factory could be maintained during leisure hours. The residential pattern of the workers interviewed suggests that they are scattered all over Greater Bombay and that they are living in communities which are in most cases fairly diverse and inter-mixed in terms of the occupational lives of their inhabitants. In such communities, therefore, the pat- terns of interaction would be affected by factors other than a per- son's status within a factory. The latter identity would be parti- cularly relevant if these workers were living in one or more housing unit(s) specifically designed to house workers from the factory. No evidence was found to support the proposition that a satis- fied worker (compared to a dissatisfied worker) is more active in the affairs of his community of residence. Here again we find a dis- 9 continuity between life inside and outside the factory. That this 9. Ammassari found a similar split between worker satisfaction, on the one hand, and either neighborhood or community involve- ment, on the other, among the Italian automobile workers. In general, social activities outside the plant were found to be dependent more on social and personal characteristics of the worker than on his patterns of work satisfaction. See Ammassari, op. cit., pp. 214-215. ”In ‘QL‘LYO' I ' “tap _ 182 reflects a conscious effort on the part of the factory workers to "compartmentalize" their two lives cannot be determined on the basis of the data gathered for this study. It may be argued that the unpredictability of neighborhood and community involvement is perhaps a function of some peculiar patterns of neighborhood and community organization in India. It may be re- called that our measures of beighborhood and community involvement are based exclusively on a person's involvement with the affairs of the geographical location of his residence. It is possible that in an Indian city, the physical proximity to one's neighbors and townsmen does not influence one's behavior and that such factors as religious affiliation, caste status, regional and linguistic background may be more important in affecting patterns of social interaction among the Indians.10 However, we lack sufficient data on the leisure-time acti— vities and the residential patterns of the workers we studied and, therefore, it is not possible either to accept or reject the argu- ments in question. Conclusion Four areas of worker behavior were examined in order to deter- mine the role of occupational status in affecting certain aSpects of worker behavior. Except in one case, union participation, no significant relationship was discovered between occupational status and worker behavior. And even in that one case it turned out that, 10. Srinivas has noted that there is a certain amount of residential clustering on the basis of language, which is achieved even in housing projects built by the government. See M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1966, p. 139. 183 when controlled for wages or seniority, the relationship between occupational status and union participation disappeared completely. We had hoped that worker satisfaction should contribute to greater involvement of the worker in his life activities, both at work as well as outside the factory.11 But no such simple relationship was found between worker satisfaction and worker behavior in any of the several areas studied. The satisfied worker, in other words, is no more or less involved than the dissatisfied worker in so far as his behavior under investigation is concerned. 11. Clark.Kerr et al., InduStrialism and Industrial Man, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 171. These authors main— tain that in the industrial community new relationships based upon employment or occupation come to replace the larger family and village attachments. In the place of the latter, they suggest, the governments of the city and nationa- list state become the object of loyalty and a source of security. ‘KC was .. ,.;x_,,».-_:..-» . fist“; _ CHAPTER VI CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Summary of Findings In the preceding two chapters we examined the role of technology (as manifested in occupational status of each worker) in affecting work experience and certain behavior patterns of the Indian automobile worker. Chapter IV deals with the impact of technology on worker satisfaction with the following aspects of his work experience: (1) the situs, (2) the firm, (3) the occupation, and (4) the job. Except for satisfaction with the firm, occupational status of a worker was found to be related to every other aSpect of his work experience. And the direction of relationship in these cases in general supported the theory ontlined in the first two chapters. Thus, we found that workers in higher status jobs (in contrast to those in lower status jobs) were generally satisfied with each of the following aspects of their work experience - the situs, the job and the occupation (as measured by the level of occupational aspirations). There was, however, one exception to this general trend; satisfaction with the present occupation (when measured through direct questions) was found to be inversely related to occupational status. To the extent that the above findings generally support the In— dustrial Man hypothesis, they are significant in and of themselves. However, our analysis did not end there, but we extended the scepe of our investigations through a limited application of multivariate analy- sis. Early in Chapter III it was observed that occupational status 184 185 was related to a number of other background and demographic factors. Therefore, we expected that satisfaction with each of the various areas of work experience would also be associated with some of those variables. After having identified several correlates of worker satis- faction with each of the selected areas of work experience, we pro- ceeded to examine through multivariate analysis the role of occupa- tional status vis-a—vis other variables in affecting worker satisfac- Er} r; tion. When the relationship between occupational status and worker ' satisfaction was examined after controlling for each of the other correlates of worker satisfaction, the following new relationships, or elaborations and specifications of the existing relationships, came to light. Situs Satisfaction: Despite controlling for wages, occupational background, education, or rural—urban background (each of which was found to be related to situs satisfaction), the relationship between occupational status and situs satisfaction did not completely disappear. But, at the same time, the original relationship was not completely in- dependent of those factors. We found, for example, that occupational status was positively related to situs satisfaction only among the less paid, less educated, rural born, or those without previous experience in industrialdmanufacturing occupations. Occupational Aspirations: As in the case of situs satisfaction, the holding of each of the several correlates of occupational aspira- tions constant did not make the relationship between occupational sta- tus and occupational aspirations disappear. Unlike situs satisfaction, however, it was found that the original relationship was "independent" 186 of such factors as wages, age, seniority, and level of education. The remaining two correlates of occupational aspirations, religious affiliation and rural-urban background, were found to have some con- ditioning effect on the relationship between occupational status and aspirations. We found that the original relationship held only for the Hindu workers but not the non-Hindu workers, and for the rural born but not the urban born. Job Satisfaction: The original (positive) relationship between occupational status and job satisfaction was "Specified" in that it existed only among the less paid, the younger workers, or those with less seniority in Premier. Occupational Satisfaction: For occupational status to be in- versely related to occupational satisfaction (when the latter is mea— sured through direct questions) came as a surprise because this find— ing was out of step with others. However, when controlled for other correlates of occupational satisfaction, the finding in question was no longer enigmatic. When either age or caste status is held constant, the relationship between occupational status and occupational satis- faction disappears completely, which shows that the original relation- ship was perhaps spurious. Similarly, when controlled for level of education only a weak relationship (P<:.10) between occupational sta- tus and occupational satisfaction remains for the less educated work- ers while the relationship disappears for the more educated workers. It may be concluded from this that satisfaction with the present oc— cupation (when measured through a direct question or two) is not a function of occupational status. .?‘«T..u n1. ' V. .l. .“"._ a. "l"! ’._AI.C..A :l- .C "LOO, 187 Satisfaction with the Company: No relationship was found between a worker's occupational status and his satisfaction with the firm. But we did find that satisfaction with the firm was related to certain other factors as, for example, wages, age, caste status, seniority, and number of children. When the relationship between occupational status and satisfaction with the company was examined by holding con- stant each of the other five correlates of satisfaction with the firm, there still was no relationship between those two variables. Satis- faction with the firm is perhaps not influenced by a worker's occupa- tional status. Chapter V analyzes the relationships between occupational status and certain areas of worker behavior, both occupational and non- occupational. Of the five areas of behavior examined - attendance at work, union interest, union participation, neighborhood involvement, and community involvement - only union participation was found to be related to occupational status. But when controlled for either wages or seniority, even that relationship (between occupational status and union participation, that is) disappears. On the face of this evi- dence, therefore, it may be concluded that when it comes to predicting actual behavior of the worker, occupational status within the factory turns out to be a poor predictor. And this holds true for both occu- pational and non-occupational behavior. The results of the multivari- ate analysis in the case of each of the five areas of worker behavior are summarized below: Attendance at work: Of the twelve variables discussed in Chapter III, including occupational status, only rural—urban background was found to be related to attendance at work. We found, for example, that 188 the proportion of workers with a high attendance rate was higher among the rural born than among the urban born. Although no direct relation- ship existed between occupational status and attendance at work, when controlled for rural-urban background, we discovered that among the urban-born workers occupational status was positively related to at- tendance. In other words, among the urban—born workers, the higher the occupational status the better the attendance record. Union interest: Interest in unions generally is not related to occupational status, but it is related to education, religion, and marital status. After controlling for each of these three variables we found that among the non-Hindus and among the married (incidentally, these two are positively related to each other), as occupational sta- tus rises, interest in unions declines. No such relationship was found among the Hindus or the unmarried workers. But when level of education was held constant, the weak original relationship between occupational status and union interest (P-<.10 disappeared completely, which sug- gests that education rather than occupational status affects workers' interest in unions. Uniongpgrticipption: Of the five areas under investigation in Chapter V, only union participation was found to be related to occupa- tional status. In addition to occupational status, however, we found wages, seniority, and marital status to be also positively related to union participation. Controlling for wages of seniority, the rela- tionship between occupational status and union participation disappears completely, which suggests that the original relationship was spurious. When marital status was held constant, the relationship between 189 occupational status and union participation still held for the unmar- ried workers, although it disappeared for the married workers. Howe ever, even in this case it is not occupational status that affects union participation for, it might be recalled, more than four-fifths of the workers in the sample were married, and probably their large numbers are responsible for the relationship between occupational status and union participation. We may conclude from this that par- ticipation in the activities of union is probably a function of wage level, which of course is positively related to length of employment in the factory, but not to occupational status. Neighborhood involvement: No relationship was found between oc— cupational status and neighborhood involvement. And, even after several "controls" are used, there does not appear to be any relation- ship between these two variables under any condition. Occupational background of the workers was the only variable that affected neighbor— hood involvement. Thus, workers with backgrounds in industrialdmanu— facturing occupations generally show a higher degree of neighborhood involvement than those who do not possess such past experience. The positive relationship between occupational background and neighborhood involvement seems to support Wilensky's thesis that "orderly work histories" lead to attachments to community organizations and to rela- tives, friends, and neighbors. But it may be mentioned that even occu- pational background does not affect neighborhood involvement consis- tently among all workers, for it was found that the said relationship held only for the craftsmen. 190 Communipy involvement: As in the case of neighborhood involve- ment, occupational status does not appear to affect community involve- ment either. Of the many independent variables used in this study, including occupational status, community involvement was found to be related only to level of education. Although no direct relationship existed between occupational status and community involvement, we is introduced one after another several "controls" to investigate if % under certain conditions the two variables are in fact related to ll'fi each other. Such analyses revealed that under none of the circum— stances examined was community involvement a function of occupational j #5 status. To sum up the above, occupational status was generally found to be associated with worker satisfaction in several areas of his work experience. However, as far as worker behavior is concerned (whether it is occupational behavior or otherwise), the occupational status of a worker proved to be a poor predictor, if at all, of his behavior as measured through his involvement with the activities at work, in the union, in the neighborhood, or in the community. This situation (at least in the case of the last two sectors of worker involvement) is certainly not peculiar to India, for Ammassari found similar pat- terns among the Italian automobile workers.1 Like him, we suspect that at the present level of industrial development the processes that link work experiences with social activities outside the factory are not yet sufficiently stabilized and patterned. l. Paolo Ammassari, "Worker Satisfaction and Occupational Life: A Study of the Automobile WOrker in Italy," Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Michigan State Uni— versity, 1964, pp. 214-215. 191 Limitations of the Study The findings in Chapter IV clearly indicate that the subjective experience of the Indian automobile worker, as measured through his satisfaction with the various aspects of work, is shaped primarily by his occupational status within the factory. Such traditional fac- tors as religious affiliation, caste status, marital status, and num— ber of children were either not related to worker satisfaction or, if related, the observed relationship was a function of some other variable(s). While these findings support the Industrial Man thesis advanced early in this study, it is important to recall that we deal here with a very special case of industrial workers in India. The workers we studied are associated with an industry that enjoys high prestige in the country, and there are not many more of such indus— tries in India at least at the present time. In terms of wages, too, these workers are among the best paid in the country. In fact, it might be argued that the automobile industry belongs to a fairly ad- vanced stage of industrial develOpment in any society and that, there— fore, the work force of this industry is quite different from that found in other, less—advanced industries in a developing society like India. And yet, our findings (insofar as labor force commitment is concerned) generally support those of Lambert, who studied smaller and more traditional factories in a much smaller Indian city. As far as worker behavior is concerned, we failed to predict it on the basis of a knowledge of his occupational status in the factory. There appear to be several possible reasons for this lack of a rela- tionship between occupational status and worker behavior in a few selected "areas" of his activities, both occupational as well as 192 outside the factory. Attendance at work (for which we had a very precise and reliable measure) lacked information as to the reasons for staying away from work. Since absence from work may be due to a variety of reasons - sickness, accidents, visiting the village, and the like — working with attendance data alone is not fruitful. Perhaps a more useful approach would be to work with data on absenteeism together with reasons for it. We strongly feel that when controlled for "positive" or "negative" reasons for absence from work, it should be possible to predict work attendance on the basis of a knowledge of worker's occupational status. i, \‘w . - . .3- . . We failed to find a direct relationship between occupational status and union involvement among the Premier workers. Union involvement was investigated in two different ways: (1) worker's interest in unions in general and (2) his participation in union activities. As Seidman and associates point out, "The union touches a peculiarly vital part of the worker's life in that it affects his standard of living, his treatment and his satisfactions during work— ing hours."2 Although.membership in a union is not compulsory in Premier, it still pays to be a member. And it is our impression that the motivation of those who do join one of the two unions in existence is primarily pragmatic. That is, the union subscription is seen by most of them as a kind of "investment for better returns" in such matters as increased wages and bonus, etc. Only a handful of workers (mostly young and more educated persons) appear to be ideologically committed to unions. Many workers who gave an 2. Joel Seidman et al., The WOrker Views His Union, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958, p. 200. 193 "unfavorable" evaluation of their union commented that although they had been regularly paying their union dues, they were not "getting back their investment." But the dominance of the "instru- mental" over the "ideological" orientation toward unions is per- haps not unique to the Indian worker, for workers everywhere seem to be motivated primarily by pragmatic considerations unless, of course, they work in a "closed shop" system. The political role of trade unions in the newly developing societies seems to have been over emphasized.3 While it is true that the top leaders of unions in such countries are often educated elite, "outsiders" who are not part of the industrial framework, the rank and file membership, at least in the factory under study, is con- cerned mainly with job security and other pragmatic goals, rather than with any plans for political action. In this sense, then, the Indian worker does not differ much from his American counterpart.4 In both cases, union involvement is a function of pragmatic consid- erations (wages, job security, etc.) more than any ideological com- mitment to unions. But our finding of a lack of relationship between occupational status and union involvement contradicts the findings reported by Deutsch in his study of Oldsmobile workers in Lansing, Michigan. Union involvement among the Oldsmobile workers is reported to be 3. Bruce H. Millen, The Political Role of Labor in Developing_ Countries, washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1963. See also UNESCO, Social and Cultural Factors Affectipg Productivipy of Industrial Workers in India, Delhi: UNESCO Research Center on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia, 1961, p. 36. 4. Delbert C. Miller and William H. Form, Industrigl Sociology: The Sociology of Work Organizations, New York: Harper, 194 positively related to occupational status.5 Since among the Premier workers, too, a significant relationship was found initially between occupational status and union participation (which later disappeared when controlled for either wages or seniority) we suspect that the relationship found by Deutsch might have been spurious. Given the fact that workers view their union in essentially pragmatic terms, it is to be expected that their involvement with the union activi- ties is influenced more by such considerations as wages or job se- curity than occupational status in the factory. Finally, the fact that no relationship was found between occu- pational status and either neighborhood involvement or community involvement may be due to the fact that, at the present level of industrial deve10pment, the processes that link the occupational and the social worlds are not yet sufficiently stabilized and pat- terned. Also, our knowledge about workers' involvements in the af- fairs of their neighborhoods and communities of residence is based exclusively on what the workers themselves told us in the course of interviewing. That is, we have no first-hand data on how the workers live or on their social interaction outside the plant. But if occupational status failed to predict worker's behavior outside the plant, so did also the traditional criteria of status assignment. Thus, religion, caste, marital status, number of children, and rural-urban background proved equally ineffective in predicting workers' involvement in the affairs of their neighborhood or community 5. Steven E. Deutsch, "Skill Level, Social Involvement and Ideology: A Study of Automobile Workers," Unpublished Ph.D. Disserta- tion, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 1964, pp. 65—66. 195 of residence. This (negative) evidence seems to contradict the no- tion that the Indian automobile worker lives in two mutually exclu- sive and compartmentalized worlds, one in the factory and the other outside it. However, in the absence of sufficient data on the resi- dential patterns of workers under study, we must leave it as an open question rather than judging the relative importance of the two sta- tus systems in relation to neighborhood and community involvement.6 chppational Status and the Traditional Caste Hierarchy Some writers suggest that in India, as far as the Hindus are concerned, there is a general correlation between traditional caste hierarchy and the new Western—occupational hierarchy. It is pointed out, for example, that the members of the higher castes are found mostly in the professions and other white-collar occupations, while the lower castes provide certain essential services and goods. Ac- cording to this view, one should expect that the workers attracted toward factory employment are predominantly non-Hindus and members of the lower castes, if Hindus. But, as Srinivas has suggested, the extension of the traditionaldmodern continuum to industry is based on earlier generalizations which lacked carefully conducted empirical studies.7 6. Srinivas suggests that in large cities such as Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, and Madras, "voluntary associations tend to be formed on the basis of language, sect, and caste, and these make up in some ways for the loss of a traditional social and cultural environment." See M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1966, p. 139. It may be pointed out that Srinivas fails to present empirical evidnece in support of his claim. 7. Srinivas, op. cit., p. 64. NHN»? 196 Systematic studies of the Indian labor scene have shown that partly due to the surplus labor supply and also as factory employ— ment offered comparatively high wages, the factories have all along attracted workers from all levels of traditional society.8 The most recent of such studies is the one of Poona workers by Lambert, which shows that the presumption that Brahmins are reluctant to enter fac- tory work is invalid. In fact, the Brahmin and Maratha castes to- gether constitute the majority of the Hindu workers in Lambert's H study. And the same is true in the present case where the ratio of i the upper two castes to the lower two is two to one. We tend to lj‘ agree with Lambert's contention that the Backward Castes seem to be ; neither excluded from nor disproportionately attracted to the fac- tory employment.9 While, therefore, it is probably true that a higher proportion of the upper castes is found in professions and other white-collar occupations, it is not necessarily the case that upper castes are reluctant to take up factory employment or that a disproportionately higher percentage of lower castes is attracted to factory work. And although the ascription—based caste hierarchy differs substan- tially from the achievement-oriented status system of the modern 8. Morris D. Morris, "Caste and Evolution of the Industrial WOrk— force in India," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 104, 2 (April, 1960), pp. 124-133; Charles A. Myers, Industrial Relations in India, Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1960, p. 92. 9. Richard D. Lambert, WorkerspFatctoriesL and Soci§l_Change in India, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963, p. 36. It may be pointed out that while Lambert had access to data on the caste composition of the larger population of Poona City, no such data were available to us for the population of Greater Bombay. In the absence of comparable data, therefore, a syste— matic comparison of our findings with those of Lambert is im- possible. ’ 197 factory, the Hindu workers we studied appear to have made the tran- sition from one system to the other without apparently experiencing much personal conflict. We lack data to show whether these workers are trying to compartmentalize their occupational and non-occupational lives. We were concerned in this study with only one occupational group — the industrial workers in one factory. However, as already FE shown, there are substantial differences in terms of status within this one group of industrial workers. It might be argued that the upper castes are attracted perhaps to the high status jobs only, E? while the lower castes predominate in the low status factory work. Our data do not support this argument because, as already shown in Chapter III, there is no association between caste status and occu— pational status in the factory. This is so in spite of the fact that the upper castes have more education and more previous experi— ence in industrial—manufacturing occupations. In fact, caste sta— tus was found to be inversely related to wages. That is, the lower castes are earning relatively higher wages in Premier than the upper castes. I must hasten to add that this situation is not the result of caste prejudice on the part of the factory management, but a natural consequence of the fact that upper caste Hindus are among the more recently hired workers. Since length of service largely determines a worker's wages in this factory, the upper castes (who 10. Attempts to insulate one social identity from the other are not uncommon, as illustrated by the remark of one of Gough's respondents: "When I put on my shirt to go to the office, I take off my caste, and when I come home and take off my shirt, I put on my caste." See Srinivas, op. cit., p. 123. 198 are relatively younger) are earning lower wages by virtue of their lesser seniority. We have dealt at length with the question of worker satisfac- tion with employment in the industrial sector. Through a series of questions the workers were asked to rank or give their preference for work in industry, in an office, or in agriculture. If the upper caste Hindus (even though not reluctant to enter factory employment) takes up factory work mainly due to its higher monetary rewards, we would expect that, compared to the lower castes, the upper castes are less satisfied with this sector of employment. That is, their attachment to the intrinsic features of industrial work should, in that case, be minimal. However, we did not discover any relation- ship between caste status and situs satisfaction. This may be seen as yet another reason to believe that, among the workers studied, traditional caste status is not relevant either at the time of their initial entry or their subsequent commitment to employment in the industrial sector. Even the limited evidence presented in this study suggests that, at least among the automobile workers we studied, the more recently acquired occupational status is more important than any of the tra— ditional criteria, including caste, in influencing workers' response to factory employment in general and to their specific jobs in parti- cular. And, on the other hand, if occupational status failed to account for worker behavior in the few selected areas of activities, the same could not be explained by any of the traditional factors either. Commenting on the declining importance of caste status, Srinivas writes: "As a result of increased secularization and 199 mobility and the spread of an equalitarian ideology, the caste sys- tem is no longer perpetuating values traditionally considered to be an essential part of Hinduism."11 But it will be an overstatement to say that the traditional status system has been completely superseded by the modern occupa- tional status system. The factory under study is located in the largest and the most industrialized city of India and it employs over eight thousand persons. In terms of wages, this factory repre— sents a kind of aristocracy among the Indian industrial workers. But even in this factory, the role of religion or caste is not al- together unimportant. While it is true that there is no statisti- cally significant relationship between religion and occupational status, the fact remains that the proportion of Hindus is much larger among the high-status craftsmen than among the machine operators or the assemblers. Similarly, the proportion of upper castes is higher among the machine operators and craftsmen than among the assemblers. The disproportionately higher numbers of Hindus and upper castes in the high status jobs (even though not statistically significant) cannot be the result of accident alone. We know, for example, that Hindus (compared to non-Hindus) and upper castes (compared to lower castes) have definitely more education. And we also know that edu- cation is positively related to occupational status. Since the factory seems to prefer the educated worker over the uneducated (at least for the jobs like machine operator and craftsman), the Hindus and upper castes stand a more favorable chance of getting hired for these positions. 11. Ibid., p. 137. ‘PF 200 But the question still reamins: Why do Hindus and upper castes possess more education than the non-Hindus and the lower castes? Discussing the process of westernization among the Indian Muslims, Srinivas suggests that, "a small body of politically powerful Muslims constituted a most important part of the pre-British aristocracy of India, while the bulk of them, converts from the low castes, remained poor and at the bottom of the hierarchy of Muslim castes."12 Among :5 both Hindus and non—Hindus, then, it is the question of the high ' castes having access to better facilities and opportunities than the 3 low castes. And, as a result of this, there is a certain amount of § §, continuity between the traditional status system and the modern sta- tus system based on occupation. But, to the extent that education rather than caste is the chief criterion in recruitment, it appears that the continuity between the old and the new status system will characterize merely the period of transition. With the opening up of both educational and occupational opportunities to members of lower castes, we may expect that in the course of time the occupation— based modern status system will become increasingly "independent" of the traditional criteria of social ranking. Implications of the Findings This study was designed to test, among other things, the propo— sition that certain social-psychological phenomena (e.g., worker satis- faction) can be predicted on the basis of a knowledge of a person's position in the social structure. While such a proposition might hardly need any more "proofs" of its validity, it was felt that much 12. Ibid., p. 73. 201 of the existing evidence in its support was based essentially on the experience of the American worker. And it was, therefore, decided to further examine the validity of this theory in a different socio- cultural setting. As part of a four-nation study under the director- ship of Professor William H. Form, India was chosen for the present project, for this country is sufficiently removed from the United States not only in physical distance but also in such important re- spects as level of industrial development and socio-cultural back- ground. In this sense, therefore, the findings of this study im- portantly add to much-needed research at the cross-national level. But it was not a direct comparative study. We focused only on one automobile factory in India, and in one sense, it is a case study of that factory. However, to the extent that the entire theo- retical framework of the study was derived from similar research in the United States (including the methodology and the measuring in- strument itself), we consider this study to be a contribution to the comparative studies of automobile workers. And it is for this reason that we have made frequent references to previous research and opinion in the United States. As a case study, we have attempted to present an analysis of the processes of social change in one Indian factory, hoping that this will shed some light on such.important matters as recruitment, training, and "commitment" of the labor force in a developing so- ciety. It is in this sense that we are concerned here with the phenomenon called worker satisfaction or commitment, and we will have failed in our task if the study is seen as nothing more than another investigation of job satisfaction. As the findings suggest, 202 the traditional Indian culture appears to present no serious obstacles in the way of Indian automobile workers in either accepting employment in industry or becoming committed to industrialism. And what is even more important, their commitment (or lack of it) can be accounted for not in terms of their traditional background, but by the occupational status in the factory. We agree with Kerr that "the future into which workers were going is much more determinative of what happens to them than the past from which they are drawn."13 In a similar vein, though in a different context, Snow concurs that in scientific teacha— bility, tradition and technical background seem to count for sur- prisingly little.14 Reviewing some of the literature on recruitment and commitment of the Indian labor force, Lambert has pointed out the disagreements reflected by the varying positions taken on the subject.15 He attri- butes these disagreements to the different levels of generalization, and in part to taking different sub-sets of data from a wide variety of situations and times in India. The evidence presented in this study can hardly resolve the controversy as to whether or not the Indian labor force is "committed" as, for one thing, this study, too, is based on a very special sub-set of data. But our findings appear to support those of Lambert. Both studies generally agree with those like Myers and Morris, among others, who maintain that recruitment 13. Clark Kerr, "Changing Social Structures," in Moore and Feldman (eds.), Labor Commitment and Social Change in Developing Areas, New York: Social Science Research Council, 1960. 14. Charles P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963, Chapter 4. 15. Lambert, op. cit., page 80. 203 and commitment of industrial labor force has not been an in— surmountable problem in India. Of course, the evidence in this study is based essentially on worker orientations as manifested in their likes and dislikes about the various aspects of their work experience. We lack data on such important matters as turnover, absenteeism, and productivity, each of which reflects to some ex- tent the commitment of a worker. While the study of worker satisfactions is considered justi- fied, at least for the purposes outlined above, the lack of rela- tionship between worker satisfaction and worker behavior was sur- prising. Of course, the absence of a relationship in this case could be a result of our imprecise measures of behavior. But, if that is not the case then we are justified in raising questions about the unbridled investigations of job satisfaction, which gener— ally assume that worker satisfaction is positively reflected in his behavior. Some years ago Brayfield and Crockett undertook a critical survey of research on the relationship between employee attitude and employee performance. These authors conclude that there is little evidence in the available literature that employee attitudes bear any simple or appreciable relationship to performance on the 16 Although we did not measure in any way worker's performance job. on the job, our limited evidence based on work attendance and union involvement seems to confirm the above conclusion. Another review of research on job attitudes seems to suggest that there does appear 16. Arthur A. Brayfield and Walter H. Crockett, "Employee Attitudes and Employee Performance," Phychological_Bulletin, 52, 5 204 to be an association between such attitudes and certain aspects of worker behavior. For example, Herzberg and associates conclude that:17 1. "... in approximately half of the studies reported workers with positive job attitudes outproduced workers with negative job attitudes. 2. "Positive job attitudes were more unequivocally related to the worker's tendency to stay with the job. 3. "There is some evidence to show that workers with positive job attitudes have fewer accidents and fewer psychosomatic illnesses." Needless to say, we have no data on any of the several areas of worker behavior listed by Herzberg and associates and, therefore, this study cannot resolve the debate as to whether or not job attitudes are in fact related to worker behavior. This is clearly an important area for further investigations, for the lack of relationship between worker satisfaction and worker behavior (as revealed by this study) poses a challenge to the behavioral scientist and at the same time demands a critical examination of that type of research which aims at merely ascertaining people's attitudes. Another critical area that this study failed to investigate is the family relationships of the worker. The neglect of this important aspect of worker's life (along with others like community and neighbor— hood of residence) was of course no accident. Given the fact that it became impossible to study in depth-pppp_the in—plant and out-of- plant behavior of the workers, a decision had to be made in favor of focusing on the factory because of the more important theoretical 17. Frederick Herzberg et al., Job Attitudes: Review of Research and Opinion, Pittsburgh, Pa.: Psychological Service of Pittsburgh, 1957, Chapter IV. 205 concerns of the study. We feel that similar attention paid to the activities of the worker at home as well as in his neighborhood and community would have provided useful data with which to explain several of the anamolous findings that this study has revealed. Finally, as far as the major task of this study was concerned - that is, to explore and specify the relationships between occupational l8 status and worker satisfaction - the theory proposed by Inkeles and that by Blauner19 has found general support in this study. 18. 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APPENDICES Appendix A Comparison of certain characteristics of the sample workers vis-a—vis total factory population (referred to in Chapter II) Total factory population (as on Dec. 31, Sample workers Characteristic 1964) (as in 1965) Lisa Up to 20 years 1% -% 20—25 years 13 15 25-30 years 26 30 30-35 years 23 22 35-40 years 16 14 40-50 years 17 15 50 + __§__ __£L_ Total 100% 100% N = 5,771 262 2. Seniority 2 years or less 7% 7% 3-4 years 14 10; 5-9 years 42 47 10-14 years 1 28 28 15 years or more 9 8 Total 100% 100% N = 5,771 262 3. Mother Tongue* Marathi 59% 60% Hindi 12 8 Urdu 7 9 Gujarati 6 7 Kanadi 6 6 Telugu 1 1 Others 9 9 Total 100% 100% N = 5,771 262 4. Religion** Hindu 81.7% 69% Muslim 8.5 11 Christian 7 6 8 Jain 1.7 5 Jew .1 1 Buddhist 4 6 Sikh, Parsi Total 100% 100% N = 5,846 262 217 218 * The major differences between the sample and the population are observed for Hindi and Urdu languages. There are fewer Hindi—speaking and slightly more Urdu-Speaking workers in the sample than in the total population. These two languages are two of the North-Indian languages. Both are quite similar to each other as spoken languages, but have different scripts. It is suspected that in the original survey of the total population, some of the Urdu-speaking workers have been erroneously classified as Hindi-speaking. ** The main differences here arise in the case of Hindus,Jains, and Buddhists. There are fewer Hindus and more Jains and Buddhists in the sample, compared to the total population. Both Jains and Buddhists are the off-shoots of Hinduism and are quite similar to the latter except of course in theological details. There is a general tendency in India to mistake a Jain or a Buddhist for a Hindu and it appears that, in compilation of the statistics for the total population, some of the Jain and Buddhist workers had been treated as Hindus. Note: The total population described above includes all daily-rated workers in the factory, both production and non—production workers, but excludes monthly-rate employees such as clerks, supervisors, and the like. Appendix B Sample Data Place of Birth Rural Urban Not ascertained Father's Education 104 93 65 262 Less than 4th grade (including no education) 4th - 7th grade More than 7th grade Not ascertained Father's Occupation Agriculture Business and services Industrial-manufacturing Not ascertained Religious Affiliation Hindu Muslim Christian Others Caste Status Brahmin group Maratha group Artisan group Village servants, backward castes Inapplicable (non Hindus) Respondent's Education No education Up to 7th grade 8th - 10th grade Matriculation or higher 99 85 51 27 -262 89 119 49 262 180 30 22 30 262 47 73 13 47 82 262 24 128 63 47 262 219 N 39.7 35.5 24.8 100.0 37.8 32.4 19.5 10.3 100.0 l—‘J—‘w Ol-‘CDLfl-L‘ OKOV-l-‘O PIO\ ¢>hla>P'a> xo.>.>.b-O \DH Wn'hl-u - N. _ ...... ... .h‘ ‘ V ‘ 220 AGE 21 - 25 years 26 - 35 years 36 years or more MARITAL STATUS Single Married NUMBER OF CHILDREN None (includes unmarried) l - 2 children 3 or more children MOTHER TONGUE Marathi Hindi Urdu Gujarati Kanadi Telugu Others OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND Agriculture Business and services Industrial—manufacturing Inapplicable (includes those for whom Premier is the first job) SENIORITY IN PREMIER 1 - 4 years 5 - 9 years 10 years or more WAGES (including dearness allowance) Up to Rupees 234 per month Rs.234 - Rs.286 per month Rupees 286 and above 40 137 85 262 49 213 262 94 83 85 262 158 20 24 18 15 25 262 37 112 83 30 262 47 122 93 262 149 60 53 262 32. N 15.3 52.3 32.4 100.0 35. 31. O bun: 100. U10\\O\IO mooxnxomoxw \O 100.0 14.1 J‘ . ‘ '7 yum .-i Appendix C STATISTICAL PROFILES OF THE THREE OCCUPATIONAL STATUS GROUPS ALONG SEVERAL DIMENSIONS (SEE CHAPTER III) ‘3‘ “v ‘L‘ifi 221 Occupational Status Level of Characteristics Low Medium High Total Significance 1. Place of Birth Rural 76% 59% 58% 65% x2 = 7 834 Urban 24 41 42 35 d.f. = 2 Total 100 100 100 100 P <.02 N (88) (85) (89) (262) C = .249 2. Grandfather's Occupation Agriculture 70% 47% 53% 57% x2 = 8.967 Business & Serv. 22 41 32 31 d.f. = 4 Industrial/Mfg. 8 12 15 12 P < 10 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .270 N (73) (68) (75) (216) 3. Father's Occupation Agriculture 45% 27% 30% 35% x2 = 8.990 Business & Serv. 41 54 45 46 d.f. = 4 Industrial/Mfg. 14 19 25 19 P <.10 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .249 N (88) (84) (85) (257) 4. Respondent's Occupat- ional Background Agriculture 32% 9% 1% 14% x2 = 41.832 Business & Serv. 43 40 46 43 d.f = 4 Industrial/Mfg. 25 51 53 43 P < 001 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .504 N (87) (85) (89) (261) 5. Religious Affiliation Non Hindus 35% 34% 25% 31% x2 = 2.738 Hindus 65% 66% 75% 69% d.f = 2 Total 100 100 100 100 P <.30 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 222 Occupational Status Level Characteristics Low Medium High Total Significance 6. Caste Status (for Hindus) Artisans & other 2 lower castes 39% 30% 31% 33% X = 1.362 Maratha group 35 43 43 41 d.f. = 4 Brahmin group 26 27 26 26 P < . 90 Total 100 100 100 100 N (57) (56) (67) (180) 7. Level of Education Up to 7th grade 73% 45% 56% 58% x2 = 14.124 8th grade or more 27 55 44 42 d.f. = 2 Total 100 100 100 100 P < . 001 N (88) (85) (89) (262) C = .330 8. Seniority in Premier 1 - 4 years 17% 27% 10% 18% x2 = 9.679 5 - 9 years 48 45 47 47 d.f. = 4 10 yrs. or more 35 28 43 35 P< 05 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .256 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 9. Present Monthly Wages Up to Rupees 234 67% 65% 39% 57% x2 = 17.576 Rs. 235 - Rs.286 l9 19 30 23 d.f. = 4 Over Rupees 286 l4 16 31 20 P4 .01 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .340 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 10. Age of Worker Up to 25 years 10% 26% 10% 15% x2 = 11.779 26 - 35 years 52 46 59 52 d.f = 4 Over 35 years 38 28 31 33 P< 02 Total 100 100 100 100 C = 281 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 223 Occupational Status Level of Characteristics Low Medium High Total Significance 11. Marital Status Single 15% 22% 19% 19% x2 = 1.648 Married 85 78 81 81 d.f. = 2 Total 100 100 100 100 P <.50 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 12. Number of Children None 33% 45% 30% 36% x2 = 6.313 One or two 28 30 36 32 d.f = 4 Three or more 39 25 34 32 P <.20 Total 100 100 100 100 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 13. Pattern of Occupational Mobility Steady "down" or fluctuating "down" 14% 13% 8% 11% x2 = 21.905 Fluctuating d.f. = 6 (equal "ups" P <.01 & "downs") 20 13 17 17 C = .353 No Movement (incl. only one job) 32 14 12 20 Steady "up" or fluctuating "up" 34 60 63 52 Total 100 100 100 100 N (88) (85) (89) (262) 14. Occupational Status (Department) Assembly Depts. 2 72% 28% 27% 42% X = 58.248 Production Depts. 27 6O 47 45 d.f. = 4 Tool Room, Repairs 1 12 26 13 P <.001 Total 100 100 100 100 C = .578 N (88) (85) (89) (262) ifllflHlllH 174 62 303