IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Job Satisfaction within the Scottish Academic Profession

Author

Listed:
  • Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E.

    (European Central Bank)

  • Sloane, Peter J.

    (Swansea University)

Abstract

This paper considers job satisfaction in the academic labour market drawing upon a particularly detailed data set of 900 academics from five traditional Scottish Universities. Recent studies have revealed that in the labour force as a whole women generally express themselves as more satisfied with their jobs than men. Our results show that reports of overall job satisfaction do not vary widely by gender. This result is explained through the nature of our dataset, limited as it is to a highly educated workforce, in which female workers are likely to have job expectations comparable to their male counterparts. Ordered probit analysis is used to analyze the determinants of an academics overall satisfaction at work as well as satisfaction with promotion prospects, job security and salary. Comparison salary is found to be an important influence on academics’ overall job satisfaction although evidence suggests that academics place a lower emphasis on pecuniary relative to non pecuniary aspects of work than other sectors of the workforce.

Suggested Citation

  • Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E. & Sloane, Peter J., 1999. "Job Satisfaction within the Scottish Academic Profession," IZA Discussion Papers 38, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp38.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miller, Paul W, 1990. "Trade Unions and Job Satisfaction," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(55), pages 226-248, December.
    2. Miller, Paul W, 1987. "The Wage Effect of the Occupational Segregation of Women in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(388), pages 885-896, December.
    3. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    4. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1990. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 106-123, January.
    5. Clark, Andrew E., 1997. "Job satisfaction and gender: Why are women so happy at work?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 341-372, December.
    6. Riach, Peter A & Rich, Judith, 1987. "Testing for Sexual Discrimination in the Labour Market," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(49), pages 165-178, December.
    7. P. J. Sloane & H. Williams, 2000. "Job Satisfaction, Comparison Earnings, and Gender," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(3), pages 473-502, September.
    8. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-141, May.
    9. Dolton, Peter J & Makepeace, Gerald H, 1987. "Marital Status, Child Rearing and Earnings Differentials in the Graduate Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(388), pages 897-922, December.
    10. Andrew E. Clark, 1996. "Job Satisfaction in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 189-217, June.
    11. George A. Akerlof & Andrew K. Rose & Janet L. Yellen, 1988. "Job Switching and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 495-594.
    12. Wright, Robert E & Ermisch, John F, 1991. "Gender Discrimination in the British Labour Market: A Reassessment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(406), pages 508-522, May.
    13. Greenhalgh, Christine A, 1980. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Great Britain: Is Marriage an Equal Opportunity?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(363), pages 751-775, December.
    14. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shun-Hsing Chen, 2011. "A performance matrix for strategies to improve satisfaction among faculty members in higher education," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 75-89, January.
    2. repec:lan:wpaper:1022 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Michael A. Shields & Stephen Wheatley Price, "undated". "Racial Harassment, Job Satisfaction and Intentions to Quit: Evidence from the British Nursing Profession," Discussion Papers in Public Sector Economics 01/2, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    4. Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E., 1999. "Salary and the Gender Salary Gap in the Academic Profession," IZA Discussion Papers 64, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Ahmed Imran, Hunjra & Muhammad Irfan, Chani & Sher, Aslam & Muhammad, Azam & Kashif-Ur, Rehman, 2010. "Factors Affecting job satisfaction of employees in Pakistani banking sector," MPRA Paper 32130, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Butt, Babar Zaheer & Rehman, Kashif Ur & Safwan, Nadeem, 2007. "A study measuring the effect of pay, promotion and training on job satisfaction in pakistani service industry," MPRA Paper 54431, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Nguyen, Anh & Taylor, Jim & Bradley, Steve, 2003. "Relative pay and job satisfaction: some new evidence," MPRA Paper 1382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E., 1999. "Your Everyday, Average Academic," IZA Discussion Papers 63, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. repec:lan:wpaper:1021 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Theodossiou, I. & Vasileiou, E., 2007. "Making the risk of job loss a way of life: Does it affect job satisfaction?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 71-83, June.
    11. repec:lan:wpaper:1084 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. J Taylor & S Bradley & A N Nguyen, 2003. "Job autonomy and job satisfaction: new evidence," Working Papers 541528, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    13. Sinem Aydogdu & Baris Asikgil, 2011. "An Empirical Study of the Relationship Among Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intention," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 1(3), pages 43-53, September.
    14. Efstathios Dimitriadis & Anna Sarafidou & Despoina Kaltsidou, 2014. "The Impact of Effective Human Resource Management Practices on Job Satisfaction: The Case of National Bank of Greece," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(2), pages 57-76.

    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. Andrew Clark, 1995. "L'utilité est-elle relative ? Analyse à l'aide de données sur les ménages," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 121(5), pages 151-164.
    2. Luis Diaz-Serrano & Jose A. Cabral Vieira, 2005. "Low-pay higher pay and job satisfaction within the European Union: empirical evidence from fourteen countries," Economics Department Working Paper Series n1560405, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    3. Vieira, José A. Cabral, 2005. "Skill mismatches and job satisfaction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 39-47, October.
    4. Michael A. Shields & Melanie E. Ward, "undated". "Improving Nurse Retention in the British National Health Service: The Impact of Job Satisfaction on Intentions to Quit," Discussion Papers in Public Sector Economics 00/3, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    5. 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.
    6. Getinet A. Haile, 2015. "Workplace Job Satisfaction in Britain: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(3), pages 225-242, September.
    7. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    8. Ricardo Pagán & Miguel Malo, 2009. "Job satisfaction and disability: lower expectations about jobs or a matter of health?," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 51-74, March.
    9. Clark, Andrew E., 1997. "Job satisfaction and gender: Why are women so happy at work?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 341-372, December.
    10. Ricardo Pagán-Rodríguez, 2015. "Disability, Training and Job Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 865-885, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Laetitia Hauret & Donald R. Williams, 2017. "Cross-National Analysis of Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 203-235, April.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Anthea Long, 2005. "Happily Ever After? A Study of Job Satisfaction in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(255), pages 303-321, December.
    16. Possenriede, Daniel & Plantenga, Janneke, 2014. "Temporal and Locational Flexibility of Work, Working-Time Fit, and Job Satisfaction," IZA Discussion Papers 8436, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Goerke, Laszlo, 2020. "Unions and Workers' Well-being," GLO Discussion Paper Series 726, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Vieira, José António Cabral, 2019. "Climbing the Ladders of Job Satisfaction and Employees' Organizational Commitment: A Semi-Nonparametric Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 12787, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Frijters, Paul & Shields, Michael A. & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos & Wheatley Price, Stephen, 2003. "Testing for Employee Discrimination Using Matched Employer-Employee Data: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 807, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. José Vieira & João Couto & Maria Teresa Borges-Tiago, 2004. "Wages and Job Satisfaction in Portugal," ERSA conference papers ersa04p667, European Regional Science Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender differences; academic labour market; Job satisfaction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    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:iza:izadps:dp38. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.