IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/20249.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

If you're happy and you know it...job satisfaction in the low wage service sector

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Donna
  • McIntosh, Steven

Abstract

The issue of worker satisfaction is important both for the sake of individuals themselves and also for employers for whom happy staff should be productive staff. Highly satisfied staff have been shown to have lower propensities to quit and to be absent. Whilst there have been some interesting contributions in this field, the existing studies are weakened by their inability to control for workplace characteristics. Uniquely, our data set, covering three low wage sectors, enables us to do this whilst still providing a wealth of demographic information. Using principal components analysis we examine five measures of workers'' satisfaction and find that individuals respond quite differently depending upon the measure of contentment employed. We then examine which of our component forms of satisfaction has the greatest impact on overall satisfaction. Satisfaction with short-term rewards and long-term prospects are found to be far more influential in determining overall satisfaction than contentment with social relationships or work intensity.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Donna & McIntosh, Steven, 1998. "If you're happy and you know it...job satisfaction in the low wage service sector," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20249, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20249
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20249/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-141, May.
    2. Miller, Paul W, 1990. "Trade Unions and Job Satisfaction," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(55), pages 226-248, December.
    3. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    4. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    5. Andrew E. Clark, 1996. "Job Satisfaction in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 189-217, June.
    6. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J. & Warr, Peter B., 1994. "Is job satisfaction u-shaped in age ?," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 9407, CEPREMAP.
    7. Robert Watson, 1996. "Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 10(3), pages 565-567, September.
    8. 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.
    9. Robert Drago & Mark Wooden, 1992. "The Determinants of Labor Absence: Economic Factors and Workgroup Norms across Countries," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 45(4), pages 764-778, July.
    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. Melanie K. Jones & Richard J. Jones & Paul L. Latreille & Peter J. Sloane, 2009. "Training, Job Satisfaction, and Workplace Performance in Britain: Evidence from WERS 2004," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(s1), pages 139-175, March.
    2. 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.
    3. E. Verhofstadt & E. Omey, 2003. "The impact of education on job satisfaction in the first job," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/169, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Samanvitha Swaminathan & P. David Jawahar, 2013. "Job Satisfaction As A Predictor Of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 7(1), pages 71-80.
    5. Vicente Royuela & Jordi Suriñach, 2013. "Quality of Work and Aggregate Productivity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 37-66, August.
    6. Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Sousa-Poza, Andres A., 2000. "Well-being at work: a cross-national analysis of the levels and determinants of job satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 517-538, November.
    7. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Donna Brown & Steven McIntosh, 2003. "Job satisfaction in the low wage service sector," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(10), pages 1241-1254.
    4. José Vieira & João Couto & Maria Teresa Borges-Tiago, 2004. "Wages and Job Satisfaction in Portugal," ERSA conference papers ersa04p667, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Francesco Bartolucci & Aleksandra Baschina & Giovanni S. F. Bruno & Olga Demidova & Marcello Signorelli, 2015. "Determinants of Job Satisfaction in Young Russian Workers," Discussion Papers 7_2015, CRISEI, University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    6. Martin Binder, 2015. "Do it with joy: Subjective well-being outcomes of working in non-profit organizations," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2015-03, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    7. Benno Torgler, 2011. "Work Values in Western and Eastern Europe," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-22, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    8. Clark, Andrew E., 1999. "Are wages habit-forming? evidence from micro data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 179-200, June.
    9. Sadettin Haluk Citci & Nazire Begen, 2017. "Workforce Entry Conditions and Job Satisfaction," Working Papers 2017-03, Gebze Technical University, Department of Economics.
    10. Aysit Tansel & Saziye Gazîoglu, 2014. "Management-employee relations, firm size and job satisfaction," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 35(8), pages 1260-1275, October.
    11. G. S. F. Bruno & F. E. Caroleo & O. Dessy, 2014. "Temporary Contracts and Young Workers’ Job Satisfaction in Italy," AIEL Series in Labour Economics, in: Miguel Ángel Malo & Dario Sciulli (ed.), Disadvantaged Workers, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 95-120, Springer.
    12. Vieira, José A. Cabral, 2005. "Skill mismatches and job satisfaction," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 39-47, October.
    13. Vicente Royuela & Jordi Suriñach, 2013. "Quality of Work and Aggregate Productivity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 37-66, August.
    14. Clark, Andrew E. & Oswald, Andrew J., 1996. "Satisfaction and comparison income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 359-381, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E. & Sloane, Peter J., 1999. "Job Satisfaction within the Scottish Academic Profession," IZA Discussion Papers 38, 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. Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Vieira, José António Cabral, 2005. "Low Pay, Higher Pay and Job Satisfaction within the European Union: Empirical Evidence from Fourteen Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1558, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    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:ehl:lserod:20249. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.