Education and Job Satisfaction: The Influences of Gender, Wage-Earning Status, and Job Values

The match between workers' expected and actual job conditions has long been recognized as one determinate of job satisfaction. Research has suggested that education is an important variable in conditioning the kinds of expectations workers bring to the workplace. Interestingly, recent studies have found evidence that when job conditions do not correspond with educational attainment, the net effect of education on levels of worker satisfaction is negative. Moreover, there is additional evidence that the form of this relationship may be different for men and women. In this research, we examine both of these possibilities using data from the 1972-73 Quality of Employment Survey. While we do find that the effect of schooling on worker satisfaction net of job conditions and rewards is nonsignificant, we do not find evidence of any negative effects of education. More importantly, although our data do indicate certain differences in the form of the education-job satisfaction relationship for men and women, our findings suggest that it is wage-earning responsibility, not the worker's gender per se, that best accounts for these variations.