Social and vocational identity in workers’ online posts: a large-scale Instagram content analysis of job-related hashtags

Instagram may be a novel context in which vocational identity construction occurs by posting content about one’s profession. Yet, the content of such posts is unclear. Therefore, we performed a content analysis of 1,260 Instagram public feed posts that included a hashtag referring to gender-stereotypical professions (i.e. stereotypically male/female, gender-neutral) at multiple status levels (low, medium, high). We examined the posters’ sex and ethnicity in relation to the profession in which they portrayed themselves and whether individual differences (i.e. sex, ethnicity, gender typicality/status of the job) were reflected in references to work values (i.e. qualities a job can offer). No differences were observed in the types of jobs in which individuals portrayed themselves according to sex and ethnicity. Differences in work value portrayals were exhibited for users’ sex, ethnicity, gender typicality, and status of the job. Differences according to sex, gender typicality, and status of the job emerged with respect to the extent to which individuals’ posts referred to work values being (dis)satisfied. Our findings highlighted that work value posts of certain social groups (i.e. sex, ethnicity) reflect work value differences in the real-world.