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Does Low Job Satisfaction Lead to Job Mobility?

Author

Listed:
  • Kristensen, Nicolai

    (VIVE - The Danish Centre for Applied Social Science)

  • Westergård-Nielsen, Niels C.

    (Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse the role of job satisfaction and actual job change behaviour. The analysis is based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) data for Danish families 1994-2000. The results show that inclusion of job satisfaction, which is a subjective measure, does improve the ability to predict actual quit behaviour: Low overall job satisfaction significantly increases the probability of quit. Various job satisfaction domains are ranked according to their ability to predict quits. Satisfaction with Type of Work is found to be the most important job characteristic while satisfaction with Job Security is found to be insignificant. These results hold across age, gender and education sub-groups and are opposed to results for UK, where job security is found to be the most important job domain. This discrepancy between UK and Denmark might be due to differences in unemployment insurance benefits and indicates that there are “invisible” benefits inherited in the welfare state insurance system because employees in Denmark don’t worry about job security.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristensen, Nicolai & Westergård-Nielsen, Niels C., 2004. "Does Low Job Satisfaction Lead to Job Mobility?," IZA Discussion Papers 1026, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1026
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anders Frederiksen & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2002. "Where did they go?," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 D3-2, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    2. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-141, May.
    3. Melanie E. Ward & Peter J. Sloane, 2000. "Non‐pecuniary Advantages Versus Pecuniary Disadvantages; Job Satisfaction Among Male And Female Academics In Scottish Universities," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 47(3), pages 273-303, August.
    4. Clark, Andrew E., 2001. "What really matters in a job? Hedonic measurement using quit data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 223-242, May.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    quits; personnel economics; job satisfaction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General
    • M50 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - General

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