Understanding Attitudes Toward Public Employment.

The bulk of public technical, administrative, and staff employees are recruited from university campuses. The attitudes of American college students toward public employment vary widely on the basis of the level of government under con- sideration, with all public employment viewed less favorably than private work. These attitudes toward civil service careers are influenced by a variety of determinants such as sex, socioeconomic condition, perceptions of "success," the motivation to "get ahead or take a top job," or assumptions about the "monotony" of public employment. A predictive model is presented which attempts to account for these determinants of attitudes toward government work and to demonstrate the relationship between student attitudes and the ultimate characteristics of our civil services, and hence the quality of public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]