Revisiting the gender job satisfaction paradox: The roots seem to run deep

Abstract

AbstractUsing the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016, a large nationally representative dataset, this article estimates the gender job satisfaction gap. This unique dataset allows to control for nearly all the variables previously suggested to explain the well‐documented higher job satisfaction of women, such as task characteristics, job flexibility and the quality of social relations at work. Accounting for all these variables, the gender gap in favour of women remains in the aggregate sample. But, when the sample is partitioned by age and educational attainment, among the youngest and the most educated workers, the gender job satisfaction gap is found to be statistically insignificant. In addition, these data allow for the inclusion of subjectively experienced intrinsic job rewards, such as sense of pride and accomplishment from work, rarely available in social surveys. With the inclusion of these variables, the gender job satisfaction gap loses its statistical significance across all age groups and educational attainment levels, except for those with a graduate university degree. For the latter group, the gender job satisfaction gap is actually reversed in favour of men. Consistently, an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition of the gender job satisfaction gap indicates that the ‘explained’ component of the gender gap substantially increases with the inclusion of intrinsic job rewards. The implications are discussed.