Doing for others on the job: The affective requirements of service work, gender, and emotional well-being

American workers face an economy that has shifted from the industrial production of goods to the post-industrial production of services. For many, job success depends on one's ability to produce speech, action, and emotion that symbolize a willingness to ''do for'' the customer or client. Such expectations comprise the affective requirements of today's service-sector jobs. Using a sample of employees within the health and banking industries, we examine the effects of affective requirements, interactive work, and other occupational conditions on women's and men's job-related emotional well-being. We find that when one's job success depends on being able to handle people well, both women and men tend to experience higher levels of inauthenticity and fewer positive feelings about their work. However, spending more time at work interacting with others and having greater control over that work tends to have the opposite effect on well-being. We also find that job involvement operates quite differently for women and men in ways that are sensitive to service-sector work conditions.