Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
December 19, 2024
Summary:
Previous research has yielded mixed evidence on the relationship between age and job satisfaction. While there is broad consensus that job satisfaction tends to increase from midlife into older age, considerable debate persists regarding whether it rises or falls during the early stages of a career. This study examines this relationship in depth by analysing four nationally representative datasets, which include both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from 108 401 workers in the UK covering all industries, occupations and geographical areas. Our findings reveal a distinct U-shaped trajectory of job satisfaction among workers in managerial, professional and associate professional occupations. However, this pattern is not evident among workers in intermediate or lower occupational classes. These results remain consistent even after adjusting for period effects, cohort effects and fixed individual characteristics. The results of this study suggest that commonly cited reasons for the mid-career crisis, such as increased work–family conflicts, are unlikely to fully explain the pattern. Instead, the answer is likely to lie in work-related factors that disproportionately affect highly skilled workers. By highlighting the role of occupational context in shaping how individuals experience their work as they age, this study contributes to resolving a long-standing debate in the job satisfaction literature and lays the groundwork for theoretical advancements in this field.
Published in
Socio-Economic Review
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwae072
ISSN
14751461
Subjects
Notes
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
Online Early
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