Gender-Related Opportunities and Turnover: The Case of Medical Sector Employees Rita Mano-Negrin* This study examined the relationships between gender, objective and perceived work-related opportunities, and turnover behavior. This was achieved using an interdisciplinary approach that combined the macro- level perspective on opportunities in internal and external labor markets, with the micro-level perspective of individual perceptions of oppor- tunities. The results revealed that the opportunities–turnover linkage is gender-specific rather than gender-neutral. Women’s turnover behavior was affected by their ‘perception’ of employment opportunities in the organizational and local labor markets. By contrast, men’s turnover behav- ior was affected by ‘objective’, organizational and local labor market con- ditions. These findings indicate that the objective opportunities of the work market may be compatible with men’s, but not women’s, work needs and hence question existing assumptions of a ‘gender-neutral’ effect of opportunities on turnover decisions. Keywords: gender, turnover, subjective and objective opportunities G ender differences in work patterns and outcomes have intrigued social scientists for the greater part of the present century. Abundant research repeatedly suggests that unraveling the differential impact of gender-related and work-related factors on employee turnover is difficult due to the complex interrelations among these factors. Gender is a broad proxy for a host of employment-related components such as the nature of the work, the work–family fit, and the structure of work-related opportunities. Indeed, many studies have emphasized that women are more susceptible than men to withdraw from their positions due to family responsibilities, lack of flex- ible work schedules, and/or their dissatisfaction with work conditions (e.g. Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 10 No. 3 June 2003 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Address for correspondence: *Rita Mano-Negrin, Department of Human Services, Haifa University, 31905 Haifa, Israel, e-mail: rsso155@uvm.haifa.ac.il