Job Satisfaction, Comparison Earnings, and Gender

TLDR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between actual and comparison pay and job satisfaction and found that the higher expressed job satisfaction of women represents an innate difference rather than the results of self-selection into jobs with highly valued attributes.

Abstract: This paper examines sex differences in job satisfaction by utilizing data from the 1986 UK Social and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) household survey. It attempts to ascertain the relationship between actual and comparison pay and job satisfaction. Employees were asked on a 0–10 scale how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their present job. They were also asked to state whether they were equitably, over or underpaid and to say how much pay they thought they deserved. Uniquely, therefore, we are able to analyse the effects of both actual and objective and subjective comparative pay measures on job satisfaction. The paper rejects the view that the higher expressed job satisfaction of women represents an innate difference rather than the results of self-selection into jobs with highly valued attributes.