IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jocebs/v7y2009i3p363-380.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of gender differences on determinants of job satisfaction among Chinese off-farm migrants in Jiangsu

Author

Listed:
  • Russell Smyth
  • Qingguo Zhai
  • Xiaoxu Li

Abstract

This study examines the effect of own income versus reference group income and the subjective factors considered important in a job for a sample of off-farm migrants in China. We find that own income has a positive effect on job satisfaction while the effect of reference group income is gender specific. We find evidence that males experience a tunnelling effect (higher income co-workers increase their job satisfaction) while females experience a jealousy effect (higher income co-workers lower their job satisfaction). We explain this result in terms of men reacting more positively in competitive environments and that, in China, males have better prospects for promotion. We find that compared with employees in western countries, off-farm migrants in China place much more emphasis on income and less importance on collegiality and job stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Russell Smyth & Qingguo Zhai & Xiaoxu Li, 2009. "The impact of gender differences on determinants of job satisfaction among Chinese off-farm migrants in Jiangsu," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 363-380.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jocebs:v:7:y:2009:i:3:p:363-380
    DOI: 10.1080/14765280903073256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14765280903073256
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14765280903073256?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knight, John & Gunatilaka, Ramani, 2010. "Great Expectations? The Subjective Well-being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 113-124, January.
    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. 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.
    2. Maarten Bavinck & Richard Pollnac & Iris Monnereau & Pierre Failler, 2012. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Job Satisfaction in Fisheries in the Global South," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 1-10, October.
    3. GAO, Wenshu & SMYTH, Russell, 2010. "Job satisfaction and relative income in economic transition: Status or signal?: The case of urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 442-455, September.
    4. Xing Zhang & Micha Kaiser & Peng Nie & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2019. "Why are Chinese workers so unhappy? A comparative cross-national analysis of job satisfaction, job expectations, and job attributes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, September.
    5. Zhiming Cheng & Haining Wang & Russell Smyth, 2014. "Happiness and job satisfaction in urban China: A comparative study of two generations of migrants and urban locals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(10), pages 2160-2184, August.
    6. Tarsila Seara & Richard B. Pollnac & John J. Poggie, 2017. "Changes in Job Satisfaction Through Time in Two Major New England Fishing Ports," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1625-1640, December.
    7. Alexander Newman & Ingrid Nielsen & Russell Smyth & Angus Hooke, 2015. "Examining the Relationship Between Workplace Support and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 769-781, February.

    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. Van Landeghem, Bert & Vandeplas, Anneleen, 2018. "The relationship between status and happiness: Evidence from the caste system in rural India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 62-71.
    2. Yuanyuan Chen & Zichen Deng, 2019. "Liquidity Constraint Shock, Job Search and Post Match Quality—Evidence from Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 332-355, September.
    3. Knight, John & Deng, Quheng & Li, Shi, 2011. "The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 585-600.
    4. Kaiser, Caspar, 2020. "People do not adapt. New analyses of the dynamic effects of own and reference income on life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 494-513.
    5. Zheng Mu & Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, 2018. "For Money or for a Life: A Mixed-Method Study on Migration and Time Use in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 347-379, August.
    6. Andrew E. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Will GDP growth increase happiness in developing countries?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564985, HAL.
    7. Peng Wang & Jay Pan & Zhehui Luo, 2015. "The Impact of Income Inequality on Individual Happiness: Evidence from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 413-435, April.
    8. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier B. & Giulietti, Corrado & Robalino, Juan D. & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2016. "Remittances and relative concerns in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 191-207.
    9. Dufhues, Thomas & Möllers, Judith & Jantsch, Antje & Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Camfield, Laura, 2023. "Don’t look up! Individual income comparisons and subjective well-being of students in Thailand," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 477-503.
    10. Nikolova, Milena & Graham, Carol, 2015. "In transit: The well-being of migrants from transition and post-transition countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 164-186.
    11. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina, 2008. "Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Components and Determinants," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2325-2340, November.
    12. Jinan Zeidan, 2015. "Are Comparisons Luxuries? Subjective Poverty and Positional Concerns in Indonesia," AMSE Working Papers 1505, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    13. Juliane Scheffel & Yiwei Zhang, 2019. "How does internal migration affect the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 953-980, July.
    14. Xiang Kang & Mingxi Du & Siqin Wang & Haifeng Du, 2022. "Exploring the Effect of Health on Migrants’ Social Integration in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-20, April.
    15. Hania Wu & Tony Tam, 2015. "Economic Development and Socioeconomic Inequality of Well-Being: A Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Urban China, 2003–2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 401-425, November.
    16. Danzer, Alexander M. & Dietz, Barbara & Gatskova, Ksenia & Schmillen, Achim, 2014. "Showing off to the new neighbors? Income, socioeconomic status and consumption patterns of internal migrants," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 230-245.
    17. Vinod Mishra & Ingrid Nielsen & Russell Smyth, 2014. "How Does Relative Income and Variations in Short-Run Wellbeing Affect Wellbeing in the Long Run? Empirical Evidence From China’s Korean Minority," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 67-91, January.
    18. Samuelson Appau & Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Russell Smyth & Quanda Zhang, 2022. "Social Capital Inequality and Subjective Wellbeing of Older Chinese," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 541-563, April.
    19. Xu, Hao, 2017. "The time use pattern and labour supply of the left behind spouse and children in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(S), pages 77-101.
    20. Ying Liang & Demi Zhu, 2015. "Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Landless Peasants in Relatively Developed Regions: Measurement Using PANAS and SWLS," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 817-835, September.

    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:taf:jocebs:v:7:y:2009:i:3:p:363-380. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCEA20 .

    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.