Large-Scale Employment Survey

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(1973), Varca, Shaffer and McCauley (1983) and Clark (1997) – reshapes the expectations theory in the sense that those who expect more are less likely to be easily satisfied. It also suggests that as work prestige increase, women as well as men look for personal development within the company probably due to the fact that they sacrificed their life on studying and building a career. Therefore, we get to the conclusion that background – for instance having a (non)working mother (Hodson, 1989) - is very important to determine job satisfaction, as well as effort and ambition to achieve such positions. However, if we refer to Becker’s theory (1985) that women with families tend to look for jobs with fewer responsibilities, it could be argued that these women are stressed by the combination of the professional career and the marriage one. Also, since women tend to experience both positive and negative experiences in a more intense way compared to men (Diener et al., 1999), it can be argued that results could be distorted by different perceptions of job conditions, especially among professionals and educated women who are aware of discrepancies in work-related benefits.

The woman’s role in the society is changing: she is not only the housewife, but also an active member of the labour market. With the increasing number of divorces and single-parents, it could be argued that the woman’s financial role in the family could heavily affect her satisfaction: in other words, is she the breadwinner of the family? How does being the breadwinner impact job satisfaction in terms of financial rewards and responsibilities burden? Controlling this variable for both men and women could open a new ground of research.

Clark (1997) hypothesized that such paradox is only a transitory phase, since similar employment opportunities are arising. He suggested that the gender differences disappear among not only the highly-skilled professionals, but also among young and highly-educated people. This hypothesis has been proved in the UK by Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza (2003), who noticed that although women’s job satisfaction is still higher than men’s, this gap has halved from 1991 to 2001 and, presumably, it will keep shrinking. This pattern is mainly due to a net decline in overall women’s satisfaction. Researching on different life and career goals among the young segment would define whether the expectations theory is still valid in a society which ships for equality, although variables such as nationality need to be controlled.

In fact, it’s important to understand that the gender/job-satisfaction paradox cannot be generalized and that different countries have distinct patterns of job satisfaction. The hypothesis that the analysed gap occurs depending on the market labour regimes has been investigated at a cross-cultural level. Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza (2000) found out that only in five countries, including Great Britain, the United States and Spain, significant difference between the genders have been found, but not always supporting the paradox. For example in Spain men’s levels of satisfaction are much higher than women’s, maybe due to the fact that phenomena such as the machismo have not been fully overcome (Keeley, 2006). In fact, although women’s low expectations are also caused by a long history of sex segregation, nowadays they are not ignorant about the subject and they probably perceive that this situation needs to change. Kaiser (2005) also carried out a comparison study on job satisfaction across Europe and related the (non)existence of the gender/job-satisfaction paradox to different stages of modernization in the labour market. Therefore, welfare regimes have been proved to be related to an advanced level of modernization and consequently to equal levels of job satisfaction between the genders. Countries like Denmark and Finland encourage equal employment opportunities by investing on institutions such as security, tax-system and childcare infrastructures. This model should be taken as an example by other developed countries. But, since we approved that such paradox is of transitory nature and the trends show improvements towards equality, this stage can be considered the final step to which, now or later, each country should manage to arrive. However most of the countries are still located in the intermediate stage in which “good” subjective job satisfaction and “bad” objective employment conditions, following the Job Satisfaction Matrix model (Zapf, 1984 cited in Kaiser, 2005) meet towards eventual improvement (Appendix). This is of extreme importance because it shows that subjective factors (e.g. motivation) are high, but external ones (e.g. working conditions, institutions) need to be developed – and this has to be taken into account by the Governments for further progresses.

Moreover, the contradicting results of different studies – some showing the existence of the paradox, others showing not very significant difference –again may be due to the use of different samples – the national ones being the most reliable. However, overall, a relevant proportion of women does not have a job, therefore it can be hypothesised that women who are not satisfied with their career, leave the labour market (Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza,-2000).

4.0. Conclusion

To conclude, this essay assessed that the gender/job-satisfaction paradox cannot be generalized to all the segments of the markets and there is a good deal of variables to take into account, such as the type of job or level of education of the subjects. The literature shows that it’s difficult to assess the validity of such phenomenon for women’s presence and role in the labour market is changing. This has an impact on their expectations and ambitions which consequently change their perception of the job conditions. Furthermore, different countries show distinct patterns of job satisfaction, showing that the external environment, the promotion of equity and supporting institutions heavily affect job conditions and satisfaction. Since such paradox is thought to be only a transitory phenomenon, it’s expected that in the near future the new generations won’t live in a society in which sex segregation is a real issue, therefore diminishing the gaps among satisfaction levels as well as work-related benefits.

5.0. Bibiliography

Andrisani, P. J. (1978) “Job Satisfaction among Working Women” in: Chicago Journals, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 588-607

Becker, G. S. (1985) “Human capital, effort, and the sexual division of labour” in: Journal of Labour Economics, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. S33-S58

Bender, K. A., Donohue, A. M. and Heywood,

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