Diversity Climate, Salutogenic Theory, and the Occupational Health of College-Educated Women from Conservative Communities

Abstract

Over the past four decades, there have been significant changes in workplaces around the world, including a workforce that has become more diverse as the relative proportion of women in the workforce has increased. This trend has included the increased workforce participation of women from conservative minority groups. This article discusses the significance of the integration of college-educated women from conservative minority groups into the workforce in terms of their own personal health and well-being. This work focuses on two groups of college-educated women from conservative minority groups that have joined the Israeli workforce: Ultra-Orthodox women and Bedouin Arab women. This qualitative study was based on five focus groups, which included 16 women from the two examined groups. The main themes raised in those focus groups were categorized and analyzed. The data analysis was guided by the diversity-climate approach and salutogenic theory. The research findings indicate that a diversity climate that included most of the different aspects of this approach was present in the participants’ statements regarding their workplaces. In practice, diversity climate supported sense of coherence, such that both diversity climate and a sense of coherence led directly to the occupational health of these college-educated, minority women.