Lutz C' Kaiser IZA

1
Lutz C. KaiserIZA
DIWDownload IZA-Discussion Paper 1876
_at_http//www.iza.org/home/kaiser

• Gender-Job Satisfaction
• Differences across Europe -
• An Indicator for
• Labor Market Modernization

2

• Motivation, Research Questions
• ? are objective (socio-economic and
  institutional) determinants of labor market
  statuses and subjective (individually assessed
  and evaluated) perspectives mutually
  complementary ?
• ? are different institutional settings reflected
  in empirical outcomes ?
• ? is a scale of modernization assignable to
  different countries?
• ? research strategy describe objective labor
  market outcomes and test for gender differences
  under control of these objective determinants

3

• Job Satisfaction Positions -
• Theoretical Approach
• ?? objective subjective perspective
• ? good and bad conditions of the workplace
  represent objective employment conditions
• ? job satisfaction is also of a subjective nature
  since individuals assess their objective
  conditions, for instance by comparison-groups
  (Clark Oswald 1996)

4

• ?? importance of institutions
• ? Happiness does not only lie within the realm
  of the individual person (), the fundamental
  constitutional arrangements, as well as specific
  institutions, crucially affect how happy people
  are.
• (Frey Stutzer 2002)
• ? conditions strongly depend on the institutional
  background
• of the national and/or regional labor market
  regime
• (Fahey Smyth 2004)
• ? important institutions are e.g. the social
  security system, taxation of income or the child
  day care infrastructure

5

• Objective subjective framework
• allows for a fourfold job satisfaction matrix

6

• Gender-Job Satisfaction Differences
• Labor Market Modernization General Hypotheses
• ? no significant gender-job expectation gap
  emerges labor market conditions
  labor market opportunities of women and men tend
  to be equal (well-being)
• ? gender-job satisfaction paradox women report
  higher levels of job satisfaction than men but
  hold disadvantaged positions in the labor market
  (adaptation)
• ? gender-job satisfaction gap to the disadvantage
  of women job satisfaction level of women is
  significantly lower than the job satisfaction
  level of men (deprivation)

7

• Country Specific Assumptions
• ? given that (non-)existence of gender-job
  satisfaction paradox can be interpreted as a
  proxy for the level of gender-modernization in a
  labor market regime
• ? Denmark Finland
• no significant gender effect on job
  satisfaction, as Danish
• and Finnish labor market institutions tend to
  promote
• female labor supply, both in quantitative
  (employment rate)
• and in qualitative terms (e.g. wrt. job status)
• ? remaining countries
• emergence of a gender-job satisfaction paradox
  is likely, as
• institutional background (social security,
  income taxation,
• child day care) cannot be rated as modernized
  compared to
• Scandinavia

8

• Compare objective outcomes
• by descriptive statistics

9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11

• Test for gender differences under
• control of objective determinants

12
(No Transcript)
13
Conclusions ?3 different levels of
modernization can be identified ? Denmark,
Finland (partially) the Netherlands equal
opportunity regime advanced modernization
? in countries with a gender-job satisfaction
paradox satisfaction differences may/will
be reduced with an ongoing
introduction of institutional devices that
promote equal labor market
opportunities for men and women secondary
level of advanced modernization ? job
satisfaction gap to the disadvantage of women in
Portugal due to low wage level that obliges
households to obtain a second income the lack
of institutional devices that could foster equal
opportunities catching-up modernization
14
? the more restrictive the labor market access
and process is for women, the more likely a
gender-job satisfaction paradox or a female-job
satisfaction gap is to emerge in any country ?
equal opportunities for women and men, as in
Scandinavian countries and also partially in the
Netherlands, imply that the gender-job
satisfaction paradox does not appear anymore
due to a fading-out process ? objective
employment conditions and individual estimation
of the job satisfaction level are
mutually interdependent