CORRELATES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Specific variables such as gender, age, personality or occupational status are predicative of job satisfaction. There has been considerable interest in the relationship between an individual's job satisfaction with other aspects of his or her life like,

a) Gender

 In a Research based in Britain there was found evidence that women report significantly higher levels of job satisfaction (Clark et al., 1996). Job characteristics have different impact on men and women for e.g. Autonomy seems to be more important for men’s job satisfaction than for women (Puglisi, 1995) whereas supportive supervision has more impact on women job satisfaction than men’s  (Mottaz, 1986)

 b) Age

Relationship between job satisfaction and age is a complex one. Researches show that the relationship is not a linear one. (Clark et al., 1996). It means that there is no proof that level of job satisfaction increases or decreases with the age.

c) Social economic factor

Variables such as socio-economic status might cause different group of workers to construct different meanings to what constitutes a satisfactory job. Pay might be of considerable interest to a worker from a lower socio economic background which might be of a less importance to the others.

d) Job and life satisfaction

Psychologist and sociologists are interested in questioning the relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction or the well-being.

 e) Job Satisfaction and Productivity

Two variables, job satisfaction and performance are relatively independent of each other, high productivity leads to high job satisfaction. Common perception is that management should be concerned with improving job satisfaction for employees as this lead to productivity. The referee view is that high performance leads to high job satisfaction. Management simply needs to reward past levels of high performance to increase productivity.