Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7332.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Changing Distribution of Job Satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh
Abstract
The distribution of job satisfaction widened across cohorts of young men in the United States between 1978 and 1988, and between 1978 and 1996, in ways correlated with changing wage inequality. Satisfaction among workers in upper earnings quantiles rose relative to that of workers in lower quantiles. An identical phenomenon is observed among men in West Germany in response to a sharp increase in the relative earnings of high-wage men in the mid-1990s. Several hypotheses about the determinants of satisfaction are presented and examined using both cross-section data on these cohorts and panel data from the NLSY and the German SOEP. The evidence is most consistent with workers regret about the returns to their investment in skills affecting their satisfaction. Job satisfaction is especially responsive to surprises in the returns to observable skills, less so to surprises in the returns to unobservables; and the effects of earnings shocks on job satisfaction dissipate over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1999. "The Changing Distribution of Job Satisfaction," NBER Working Papers 7332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7332
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7332.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levy-Garboua, Louis & Montmarquette, Claude, 2004. "Reported job satisfaction: what does it mean?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 135-151, April.
    2. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    3. Steiner, Viktor & Wagner, Kersten, 1997. "East West German wage convergence - How far have we got?," ZEW Discussion Papers 97-25, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-442, June.
    5. Gerlach, Knut & Stephan, Gesine, 1996. "A paper on unhappiness and unemployment in Germany," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 325-330, September.
    6. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-141, May.
    7. Farber, Henry S, 1990. "The Decline of Unionization in the United States: What Can Be Learned from Recent Experience," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 75-105, January.
    8. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    9. George J. Borjas, 1979. "Job Satisfaction, Wages, and Unions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 14(1), pages 21-40.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Getinet A. Haile, 2015. "Workplace Job Satisfaction in Britain: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(3), pages 225-242, September.
    2. Saziye Gazioglu & Aysit Tansel, 2006. "Job satisfaction in Britain: individual and job related factors," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1163-1171.
    3. Addy, Samuel N. & Nzaku, Kilungu & Ijaz, Ahmad, 2012. "The Role of Underemployment in Employee’s Overall Job Satisfaction: The Alabama Case," 2012 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2012, Birmingham, Alabama 119809, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    4. Vicente Royuela & Jordi Suriñach, 2013. "Quality of Work and Aggregate Productivity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 37-66, August.
    5. José Millán & Jolanda Hessels & Roy Thurik & Rafael Aguado, 2013. "Determinants of job satisfaction: a European comparison of self-employed and paid employees," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 651-670, April.
    6. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    7. Damiano Fiorillo & Nunzia Nappo, 2014. "Job satisfaction in Italy: individual characteristics and social relations," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(8), pages 683-704, August.
    8. Peng Nie & Lanlin Ding & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2020. "What Chinese Workers Value: An Analysis of Job Satisfaction, Job Expectations, and Labour Turnover in China," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2020(1), pages 85-104.
    9. repec:lan:wpaper:1021 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Theodossiou, I. & Zangelidis, A., 2009. "Career prospects and tenure-job satisfaction profiles: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 648-657, August.
    11. Pudney, Stephen & Conti, Gabriella, 2008. "If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! Survey design and the analysis of satisfaction," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-39, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    12. Robin Zoutenbier, 2016. "The impact of matching mission preferences on well-being at work," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 295-315, August.
    13. FitzRoy, Felix & Nolan, Michael A., 2005. "Value of Work: Bargaining, Job-Satisfaction, and Taxation in a Simple GE Model," IZA Discussion Papers 1760, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. FitzRoy, Felix & Nolan, Michael A., 2005. "Value of Work: Bargaining, Job-Satisfaction, and Taxation in a Simple GE Model," IZA Discussion Papers 1760, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Stavros A. Drakopoulos, 2020. "Pay Level Comparisons in Job Satisfaction Research and Mainstream Economic Methodology," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 825-842, March.
    16. Garcia-Serrano, Carlos, 2008. "Does size matter? The influence of firm size on working conditions and job satisfaction," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-30, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Robin Zoutenbier, 2014. "The Impact of Matching Mission Preferences on Well-being at Work," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-036/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    18. David Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald, 1992. "Entrepreneurship, Happiness and Supernormal Returns: Evidence from Britain and the US," NBER Working Papers 4228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Levy-Garboua, Louis & Montmarquette, Claude & Simonnet, Veronique, 2007. "Job satisfaction and quits," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 251-268, April.
    20. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    21. Alex Bryson & Lorenzo Cappellari & Claudio Lucifora, 2004. "Does Union Membership Really Reduce Job Satisfaction?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 42(3), pages 439-459, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.