GENDER DIFFERENCES IN JOBSATISFACTION: Why Aren't Women More Dissatisfied?

Randy Hodson*
Indiana University at Bloomington
T h i s article anaiyzes gender differences in job satisfaction among full-time workers.
Why do women report equal or greater job saosfaction than men in splte of objectively inferior jobs'? Analysis reveais few differences between men and women in the determinants of job satisfaction when considering job characteristics, farmly responsibilities, and personal expectations. Little support is found for theories that men and women: (1) focus on different aspects of w o r ~ in arriving ar a given level of job satisfaction; (2) differentially condition their job satisfaction according to the extent of their family responsibilities; and (3) employ different personal expectations in evaluating their jobs. Two alternative explanations for women's relatively positive job attitudes y e considerea. First, women may anive at a higher level of job satisfaction than men by using different comparison groups. Second. men may be more willing to verbalize dissatisfaction wtrh work because of different socialization. The most likely explanation is that these processes operate in conjunction to produce greater reported job satisfaction among women.

Women hold jobs that are, on average, inferior in many respects to those held by men (Berch 1982; Featherman and Hauser 1976: Kreps 1971); Women have been found. on average, to have icss autonomy, closer supervision, and more limited promotional opportunities than men (Wolf and Fligstein 1979). Yet women's attitudes toward their jobs are often more favorable than men's (Glenn, Taylor, and Weaver 1977; Penley and Hawkins 1980; Quinn, S m e s . and McCullough 1973). Three possible explanations for this disparity are tested in this article. First, men and women may have different evaluations of jobs because they value different characteristics of work (Kanter 1977). Second, women may be more sausiied because they focus on their roles as homemakers, rather than on their roles as workers, and derive additional satisfactions from this sphere (Veroff, Douvan, and Kulka 1981). Third. men and women may have different personal expectations and use different comparison groups in arriving at evaluations of their jobs. For instance, women mav compare themselves to other working women rather than to men and,
*Direct all comsponnence l o : Randy Hodson, Depamnmt o f Sociology, Ballanunc H a l l ,Lndiana University, Bloormngton,IN 47105. The Sociological Quarterly, Volume 30. Number 3. pages 385-399. Copyright @ 1989 by J.\I Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSS:0038-0253.

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thus, may not feel relatively deprived. Or, they may compare themselves to women sngaged solely in homemaking and feel relatively satisfied with their employment sitmtion regardless of its specific charactenstics (Glenn, Taylor, and Weaver 1977). h c h of these possible e.xplanations for women's higher job satisfaction is examined in greater detail below.
JOBCHARACTERISTICS

There has been a great deal of debate about the extent to which men and women give different weight to different aspects of work (see Agassi 1982). Lacy, Bokemeier and Shepard (1983) find no differences in the consequences of gender-speciiic childhood socialization for job satisfaction. Nor do they find that a wide range of job characteristics differentially aifect the work attitudes of men and women. Where gender differences in work attitudes have been found (as in the analysis of Murray and Atlunson 1981, who find that women weight relations with coworkers more heavily and that men weight advancement more heavily), these differences have been relativeiy small. A variety of job characteristics are evaluated in this article to see to what extent men and women d~fferentidlyvalue various aspects of their jobs. These characteristics include occupational prestige, earnings, education, job compiexity, level of authority exercised. how closely the worker is supervised, job pressure, being held responsible for things outside one's control, how frequently one has to get dirty on the job, being underemployed. workplace size, and level of optimism about one's future at the current job. These and related measures of job and organizational characteristics have a long hstory of use in the literature on job satisfaction and have been consistently identified as major determinants of job satisfaction (Parries. Shea, Spitz, and Zeller 1970: Quinn, Staines, and McCullough 1974). For instance, plant size has important influences on a variety of working conditions, from the prevalence of bureaucracy, to a heightened division of labor, to job satisfaction. Those working in large plants have been found consistently to have less favorable attitudes toward their work (Ingham 1967; Kimberly 1976).
FAMlLY CHARACTERISTICS

Another possible explanation for women's more positive job attitudes is that women may rely on the family as an alternative source of satisfaction and therefore, evaluate workrelated concerns in a softer light. The role of children in moderating women's attachment to work has been a focus of much research (Crosby 19821, but tests of this hypothesis have met with mixed resulrs. Quinn, Staines, and McCullough (1974) find that working women with children under six are less satisfied than those without young children. More recently, however, Crosby (1982) reports that single workers and married workers without children are less satisfied with their jobs than are marned workers with children. She argues that this is because the problems and joys associated with children shift attention 3way from work concerns and toward the family. In related research, Sekaran (1985) finds that the presence of children in the iamily increases wives', but not husbands', level d i m e n d well-being.

Gender Uiffermces m jab Satisfadion

387

PERSONAL EXPECTATIONS

Different expectations that men and women bring to the workplace provide a third possible explanation for women's greater reported job satisfaction. Complaints about work result not just from objective problems at work, but also from the expectations brought to the work situation (Hodson 1985). Educated workers, for example. report greater dissatisfaction with a given job than do less educated workers in the same job (Glenn and Weaver 1982). What are the reievant expectations that workers bring to the job? Crosby (1982) repom that most workers compare themselves to someone of the same sex in appraising their jobs. Women's relative job satisfaction, then, may be more easily understood if we are able to assume that women workers compare themselves t other women but not to male workers. Under this assumption, the employment situation of women's own mothers when they were growing up may provide a meaningful referent. If a woman's mother was not employed outside the home when she was growing up, her reference group is likely to be women who work at home. This reference point may make paid work outside the home seem relatively desirable, regardless of its limitations. More specifically, the income and status associated with paid work outside the home may compare favorably with unpaid household work. Conversely, if a woman's mother was employed outside the home when she was growing up, her reference group is more likely to be paid employees and her expectations of work may be higher. Research by Kessler and McRae (1982) indicates that employment outside the home is associated with improved mental health among women, providing tentative support for the hypothesis that women experience outside employment as a relatively favorable opuon. Women may also compare their situation with those of their sisters or female friends as relevant others. Again, comparisons with significant others who work at home may make women relatively satisfied with whatever paid work they have. Because of extensive occupational segregation, female workers may have little occasion to compare their jobs with those of males (Crosby 1982). conmbuting to their relative job satisfaction. In effect, they may not have full information on, or at least daily reminders of, the extent to which they are under-rewarded. Thus, women who are in jobs with a high concentration of women may not make the sort of comparisons that would lead them to be dissatisfied with their jobs. Comparisons w~tirthe jobs and efforts of their husbands, however, may allow married women workers such a reference point (Andnsani 1978). Since many women have the opportunity for this comparison but still have relatively high job satisfaction, it appears it is not typically king made. Thus, we prebct that differences between spouses' jobs will have no effect on a wife's level of job satisfaction. In contrast, there is evidence that husbands do make such comparisons to their working wives. These comparisons should encourage positive !ob attitudes for the husbands of woriung wives because they generally occupy more rewarding jobs. This hypothesis is given tentative support by Hornung and McCullough (1981, p. 138), who report that "Men find marriage to an 'overeducated' woman stressful. while achievement-oriented women find marriage to an 'overeducated'

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husband to be sausfying." Similarly, Mirowsiry (1987, p. 1404) reports that "'As spouse's income increases, employed women feel less underpaid while employed men feel just the opposite. " These observations lead to the hypothesis that women's greater job satisfaction can be understood in terms of the social comparisons they make. Because female workers' attitudes suggest that they compare themselves mainly to women, we predict that worKine women with mothers who were not engaged in paid work outside the home and women who work in female-typed occupations will have more positive amtudes. Assuming that women workers do not compare themselves to men. we expect that their attitudes w~il be unaffected by real differences between their own jobs and their spouses' jobs.
DATA AND METHODS

The data that we use to examine gender differences in the determination of job satisfaction are taken from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study of Schooling and Attainments (WLS). The WLS provides detailed information about current job characteristics and job attitudes, a$ well as data on respondents' past work, family histories, and expectations ior the future. The WLS is based on a one-third random sample of all 1957 high school graduating seniors in Wisconsin.' Respondents were initially interviewed during their senior year in high school and reinterviewed in 1964 and 1975. We select for analysis respondents who were employed full-time in 1975 (N = 5,573). Full-time work is defined as work for thirty-five or more hours per week for nine or more months per year.=Thus. the evaluation of the theories reviewed above is based on a sample of workers in their mid-careers, who have at least a high school education and are employed full-time. Pantime employees are not included because the experience of part-time work differs slgnificantly for men and women. Many more women than men work part-me voluntaniy because of their greater child-care responsibilities. Inclusion of these workers wouid reduce our ability to isolate the differentd determinants of job satisfaction for similarly situated male and female workers. The measure of job satisfaction used as a dependent variable is based on a factor analysis of thirteen measures of satisfaction with various aspects of the job and with the job as a whole (alpha = 24). These job aspects include pay, coworkers, how interesung the work is, how clean the work is, the hours worked, how uring the work is, how highly people regard the job, job security, the amount of freedom on the job, the chance to help people, not being under too much pressure, the chance to get ahead, and the chance to use one's abilities. JobCharacteristics Job characteristics are measured as follows: occupational prestige, using occupational prestige scores (Siege1 1971); earnings, in thousands of dollars of wage and salary e m ings per year; education, as years of schooling completed; job complexity, by a query whether respondents' jobs entailed "doing the same thing in the same way repeatedly, or the same thing in a number of different ways. or a number of different tlungs"; authority,

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3 89

as a summary index based on the number of positive responses to a series of questions about the exercise of authority on the jov; closeness of supervision, as a summary index derived from the number of positive responses to a series of questions about how closely the respondent's work is supervised4;being held responsible for things outside one's conuol, by a question on how frequently this occurs; the extent to which the respondent has to get dirty as part of the job, by a quesuon on how Erequentiy h s occurs; workplace size, as the natural logarithm oi the number of employees at the place of work; opumism about one's future at work, by responses to a single item: "Do you thlnk the chances are good or not so good that you will be doing what you want to do ten years from now?"' Following Sullivan (1978) and Bums (1983), underemployment is measured in terms of the mismatch between education and occupation. T h r e e categories of respondents are considered underemployed, namely those high school graduates who: (1) were employed s unskilled labor, food service workers, cleaning service workers, or in certain other service occupations such as crossing guards, ushers, and bootblacks; (2) had completed at least one year of college education but were employed in any other service occupation or (3) had completed a col(such as hair dressers, cosmetologists, and hospital ~rderlies)~; lege degree but were employed in sales, clerical, manual, service, or farm occupations.
Family Responsibilities Three variables are used to measure family responsibilities: mamage, number of children, and number of children under six years of age. The last of these may be particularly salient for women workers trying to juggle home and career responsibilities. Personal Expectations Seven measures of personal compansons that workers may make in developing their expectations about work are included in the analysis. The first, comparisons with high school aspirations. is calculated as the difference between current occupational prestige and the occupational prestige of the job asp& to by the respondent when a senior in high school. High values represent current jobs that fare well in this comparison; low values, jobs which fare badly. .A second expectation measure, also derived from past to present comparisons, is based on the difference between current family income and that of the household of origin at the time of high school graduation.' This provides an important reference point for evaiuating the success of one's own career. A third comparison with the past is that which workers may make with their mothers' situation, measured by a binary variable indicatine whether or not their mother worked during their senior year in high school. Four contemporary comparisons are included in the analysis, two based on comparisons that workers may make between themselves and their spouses. The f i t indicates the difference between respondents' occupational prestige scores and their spouses'. The second is based on the difference between spouses' incomes. (Whether or not one's spouse currently works is also included as a control variable in the analysis.) The third comparison refers to female siblings, and is scored as a binary variable ("0" representing a sister not employed outside the home: "1," a sister so employed)! The final measure of

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personal comparisons is the percentage of women employed in the respondent's detailed occupation, indicating the extent to which it is female-typed. The model thus includes a full set of measures of job characteristics. farn~ly responsibilities, and personal expectations and comparisons. No other analysis of gender differences in job satisfaction or which I am aware has sirnultaneousiy evaiuated all of these possible detemmants. Thus, analysis of the current data set may provide answers to some of the lingering disputes in this field. Cases with missing data on the job satisfaction variables were excluded from the analysis. Missing data in the independent variables were replaced with mean values for y c h variable.
RESULTS

The results of the sraustical analysis are presented in three sections: il) an examination oi mean differences between women and men for the variables included in the model, ( 2 ) an examination of differences between men and women in the way job satisfaction is determined, and (3) estimation of the model of job satisfaction snaufied across different types of family composition.
Differences Between Men and Women in jobs, Family Situation, and Expectations

Means and standard deviations for the analysis variables are reported separately for men (N = 4,138) and women (N = 1,435) in Table 1. These results indicate that. on average, women are slightly more satisfied with their jobs, consistent with previously published research. In addition, a pervasive pattern of differences between men's and women's job characteristics is indicated in Table 1. each difference being statistically significant at the .001 or .Ol level. The sole exception is funue optimism, which does not differ between men and women. The female workers in this sample have slightly less occupational prestige and slightly less education than the male workers and have substantially less earnings. Their jobs are also somewhat less complex. They have less authority on their jobs, work under slightly less pressure, are less llkely to be held responsible for things outside their control, and have !obs that on average require them to get dirty less often than men. Finally, women are more likely to be closely supervised and to work in smaller establishments. and are much more likely to be underemployed. Significant gender differences in family responsibilities are also indicated for this sample. Men are more likely to be married (89%) than women (70%). This stems from our sample selection of full-time workers. Many married women do not worK outside the home or work less than full-time and are thus excluded from the sample. As a result. single, separated. divorced, and widowed workers make up a greater portion of the female than the male subsampie. Female workers in this sample thus report having, on average, fewer children and fewer children under six than the male workers. (These differences in sample selection panhlly motivate the analysis stratified across types of family composition that is presented in Table 3.)

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Table 1 Male and Female Means and Standard Deviations for Analysis Variables
Males (N = 4138) Standard Mean deviation

I'ariables
job satisfacuon t 1 4 ) Job charactercrtlcs Occupauona presuge Earmngs (51.000) Education (years) Cornplexlty ( 1-3) Authority (1-3) Closely supervised

Females (N = 1435) Standard .Mean devlarion

.Mean difference 1:-test)

3.47

(0.37)

3.52

(0.38)

4 . 6 7 '

(1-4)
Pressure (1-5) Held responsible (14) Dirty (1-5) Underemployed (0.1) Workplace sue (ln) Optimism (1-3) Family responsibilities .Married 1 child 2 children 3 children 4 or more chiidren # of children under 6 years old P e r s o ~txpectations i High schooi pians Parents' income Spouse work Spouse's prestlge Spouse's earmngs Mother wor~ed Sister works " 0 femaie in occupation
-

0.89 0.10 0.31 0.25 0.20 0.71

( 0.31)

i 0.30)
(0.46) ( 0.44) ( 0.40) (0.83)

0.70 0.09 0.24 0.20 0.18 0.20

(0.46) ( 0.28) ( 0.43) (0.40) (0.39)

( 0.49)

-18.00' -1.59 4 . 9 4 ' 3 . 8 3 ' -1.70 2 1 . 7 6 '

Votes: a = .MI. 5 = .01. c = ' 3 (two-talled test,.

Large differences between men and women are dso indicated in the personal comparison measures. Female workers are likely to have experienced a greater fall from high school aspuations to current employment than male workers. In addition. they do not report as large an increase in current family income in relation to that of household of origin. Thev also report less advantage in occupational prestige relative to their spouses and a substantial deficit in income relative to their spouses. Finally, working women are

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slightly morc llkely to report hav~ng a working mother and a working slster, and are much more likely to report having a spouse who works and to report working in a female-typed occupation.
ruble 2 Regression oi Job Satisfaction on Job Characteristics, Family Responsibilities, Personal Expectations. and Gender Interactions (N= 5.573)
Urtstand-

Independent variables
Gender (1 = femaie) Job characterisrics Occupational prestige Earnings Education Complexity Authority Closely superv~sed Tressure Held responsible
Dirty

.\fainefects Standiudized ~rdizea

Gender ~nteractrons IlmtandStam~rdized cudizea

1.18gb

i ,138)

Underemployed Workplace size Optimism Family respons~oiiities >lamed :child 3 children 3 children 4 or more children s of children under 6 years old Persomi erpecratronr High school piam Parents' income Spouse works Spouse's presuge Spouse's earnings Jiother worked Sister works " 0 female in occupation Csnstant Sm d a r d Error Xfultiple R

Sores: a = .001. b = .01, c = .05, d = .lo. e = .?O (two-tailed t-test). The unstandardized coefficients have been multiplied by 10 to reduce leading zeros.

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393

ExplainingJobSatisfaction

In spite oi large aferences between men and women in job characteristics, family responsibilities, and personal expectations, Table 2 inlcates few gender bfferences in the way these characteristics translate into job satisfaction. Let us fist consider differences in the effects of job characteristics. Occupational prestige, earnings, complexity, authority, and optimism about the future have suong positive effects on !ob satisfaction for both men and women. Education, being closely supervised, pressure, being held responsible for things outside one's controi, geuing dirty on the job, and empioyment in large workplaces are suong negative influences on job sarisfaction. Being underemployed has a slight negative effect on job satisfaction. All these relationships accord with previous research. What is surprising about the results presented in Table 2 is the paucity oi differences between the panem for men and for women. There is only one significant difference in the effects of occupational characteristics on job satisfaction: women are less iavorably influenced by job complexity than are men. Examining the effects of family responsibilities on job satisfaction reveals few significant effects for either gender. Being married has a significant positive effect on job satisfaction for both men and women. Having a greater number of children under six has a negative effect on job satisfaction for women but not men, probably because the responsibility for talung care oi young children falls more on women. However, this difference is statistically significant oniy at the generous .20 levei. Personai expectations also have few consequences for job satisfaction for either men or women. Achievements in excess of high school aspirations have a small positive effect, and earnings in excess of spouse's earnings have a small negative effect. The latter probably results not from dissatisfaction with one's own earnings being too high (which seems unlikely) but from dissatisfaction with the standard of liking for the household resulting from spouse's w i n g s that are too low. Both the high school aspirations and the spouses' earnings effects are quite small, significant only at the .10 and .20 levels, respectively. For women only, there is a small negative effect on job satisfaction of having had a worlung mother. This finding suppons the hypothesis that working mothers provide a reference point against which women judge their current job, one unavailable to those whose mothers did not work outside the home when they were in high school. However, this effect roo is small, significant only at the .10 level. More noteworthy is the effect of occupational segregauon. Women in female-typed occupations express greater job satisfaction than do those in male-dominated occupations. This supports the hypothesis that women's greater job uusfaction is pmally a resuit of their constrained social comparisons? The final interaction noted in Table 2 is a hfference between genders in the effects of spouse's occupational prestige. Men appear more dissatisfied, women more satisfied, if theu own prestige is higher than that oi their spouse. However, this convast is significant only at the .2O level and difficult to reconcile with previous research. If we compare unadjusted mean levels of job satisfaction for men and women, as reported in Table 1, ir appears that women are .L75 units more satisfied (on a 4-point scale). What is the net effect of being a female worker, as estimated in Table 2 after con-

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Table 3
Regression of J o b Satisfaction Stratified by Family Characteristics
:Married (iV = 4,685) Gender .\lain intereflects actions :Vormarried (children) ~IV = d09) Gender !.lain her.grfects utionr .Vot mnrrled
(no cnildren I

Independent variables

iiV = 06) Genaer .blain .ntere,fects acrlons

Gender ( 1 = female) Job characteristics Occupauonal prestige Earnings Education Complexity Authority Closely superv~sed Pressure Held responsible Dirty Underemployed Workplace size Optimism F m l y responribiliries 1 child 2 children 3 children 4 or more children Tt of children under 6 years old P e r s o ~expectatlorn i High school plans Parents' income Spouse works Spouse's prestige Spouse's earrungs hiother worked Sister works "c female in occupation Constant Standard error Mu1tiple R

0.887d

2.497=

!.I09

0.325= 0.115 -0.028 0.234 0.023 -0.318'

4.949d -0.221 0.234 43.270 0.337 -0.295

Notes: a = .001. b = .01. c = .05. d = .lo. e = .20 (:wo-mied t-test). The unstandardized coeificients have been muitiplied by 10 to reduce leading zeros.

trolling for a variety of job characteristics. t'ynily responsibilities. and personal expectations. and allowing the effects of these variables to d f f e r between men and women:' X n

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3 95

estimate of this net effect can be made by adding the direct effect of gender reported in Table 2 to the interaction effects involving gender when these are evaluated at the mean level for the variables involved. This estimate is .a, or about the same as the mean difierence between men and women unadjusted for differences in jobs, families, and personal expectations. In addition, the net contribution to explained variance oi the five gender interactions reponed in Table 2 is quite small (.0029). Whiie thls conmbution to explained variance is significant at the .O1 level. its substantive significance is open to question. Thus. the job satisfaction model presented in Table 2 does not much advance our effon to understand why women are more satisfied with their jobs than men. While we have reported a pauern of gender interactions in the determination of job satisfaction that is substantively interpretable, the principal conclusion irom these results is that gender differences in the process of determining job satisfaction are quite small.
Differences in Family Composition

Table 3 presents an analysis of job satisfaction for men and women evaluated across different types of family composition. The job satisfaction model is reestimated separately for married workers, for not married (single, divorced, separated, or widowed) workers with children, and for not married workers without children. The results are very similar to those presented in Table 2, though some coefficients are no longer significant because of reduced subsample sizes. Even in the sample of not married workers with children. females still evidence less enthusiasm for complex work and greater job dissatisfaction if their mothers worked. They are also less satisfied if they have children under six years old. though this coefficient is no longer significant In general, these results suggest that women in different tylpes of family situations experience work in roughly the same manner and that their experience and appraisal of work is very similar to that of men. The conmibutions oi the gender interactions to explained variance are quite small in the three models presented in Table 3 (.0032, .0068, .0011). Only the first of these is significant at the .05 levei. For the three subsamples, the unadjusted mean differences between male and femaie job satisfaction are .06, .07, and .13, with women being more satisfied in each subsunple. The adjusted mean gender differences in job sausfaction, based on me regression coefficients for the gender effect and the gender interaction effects. are .02, .10. and .09. Again, these results indicate that our model is not overwhelmingly successful in explaining the persistently higher job satisfaction evidenced by women.
DISCUSSION

The pauern of gender diferences in the determination of job satisfaction reponed in this article is similar to h t reported by Miller (1980). In accord with Miller. I find that women are less favorably disposed than men toward complex work. Family responsibilities and personal expectations are also examined in this article. Women evidence greater job dissatigacrion as a result of having children under six or mothers who worked. Women evidence greater job sarigaaion if they are employed in female-typed occupa-

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tions where compansons with male workers are not readily available. In general, these findings provide only scant support for the thesis that women report higher job satisfaction because they are interested in different aspects of work than men or because they have made adjustments in their responses to work because of family responsibilities. Women evidence slightly greater job satisfaction, no matter what controls we employ. These largely negative findngs are similar to those oi.Voydanoff (1980) and Golding. Resnick, and Crosby (1983), who report few differences in the appraisal of job or iamily characteristics by men and women. o a different appraisal of Since we cannot attribute women's greater job sausfaction t job characteristics, to the differential weight of family responsibilities, or to different personal expectations, how then are we to explain the persistent finding that women report greater job satisfaction than men? Several possibilities remam. One is that women use different reference groups than men in evaluating their jobs, as suggested by Kessler and McRae (1982). They report that wives who are employed outside the home have' better mental health than those who are not. If women engaged in household work provide a key reference group for working women, then paid employment will look relatively positive by comparison. no matter how objectively flawed it may be. Our own finding that women with working mothers express greater job dissatisfaction provides tentative support ior this hypothesis. If women use their mothers as reference points for evaluating their own employment, then women with non-worhg mothers can be expected to be more sausiied with their jobs than those with working mothers. Similarly, our finding that women who work in female-typed occupations are more satisfied confirms the importance of social comparison groups in the process through which job sausfaction is determined. Our indicators of gender-relevant companson groups (whether or not the responaent's mother worked, employment in a female-typed occupauon. and sister's employment) may not be adequate measures of women's social reference points. Comparisons with other female reference points may be necessary as well. Such reference points might include friends, other relatives, or schoolmates. An alternative explanation to the reference group hypothesis for women's positive work attitudes focuses on differences in gender socialization to express discontent. To the degree that women are socialized to be more passive than men. they will be less likely to express their discontent at work, regardless of the extent to which it is experienced. Thus, in a discussion of deskilled female clerid workers, Glenn and Feldberg (1977, p. 60) note that "[Their employers] rely on them to act like ladies and continue to be loyal, dependable, and polite." However. other research shows that women are not less likely than men to complain about illness and psychological distress (Kessler and McRae 19811, nor any more likely to have an acquiescence bias in their responses to such questions (,Gave and Geerken 1977).These findings do not provide preliminary support for the " s o c ~ z a tion to acquiescence" hypothesis. Unfortunately, no direct or indirect measures oi this process were available for the current analysis.
CONCLUSIONS

Our analysis of gender differences in the determination of job satisfaction has found only minor differences in the process between men and women. At least some women do not

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397

like complex work as much as men. Women express slightly greater job dissatisfaction than men d they have children under six years oi age. Finally, women are slightly more satisfied if their mothers did not work outside the home and if they are employed in a female-typed occupation. These findings provide little support for the various theories of gender differences in job satisfaction, with the exception of theories that hypothesize the use of different reference groups by men and women. If employed women contlnue to use as comparison groups women who work at home and their fellow incumbents in femaletyped occupations, they will, in all likelihood, also continue to voice greater satisfaction with their jobs than men. We were unable to test the alternative explanation that women express greater job satisfaction because of differential socialization leading to an acquiescence bias in their responses to job satisfaction questions. Both the "reference group" and "socialization to acquiescence" explanations may conmbute to the lack of complaint from female workers about their working conditions. Perhaps both of these explanations are necessary to understand women's higher levels of reported job satisfaction. Neither explanation is adequately addressed by current studies of job satisfaction. Indeed, the ability to investigate these explanations lies outside the research design of most studies of job satisfaction, which focus on the roles of different job characteristics. This limitation in our current research paradigm may explain why the finding of greater female job satisfaction has remained an unsolved puzzle for so long. The solution to the puzzle may entail research questions and designs outside the current purview of this specialty area and may be contingent on precisely specifying the relevant reference groups that workers use when they evaluate their jobs. The solution may also have to include efforts to measure respondents' willingness to express disconrent with their jobs. The problem of establishing reference groups seems solvable, while that of measuring wiilingness to express discontent, as distinct from job satisfaction or from other speclfic attitudes, may present a more difficult research problem.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank David Snow, David Heise. and the anonymous reviewers for The Sociological Quarteriv for helpful advice on this arucle.
NOTES
1. See Sewell ma Hauser (1975) for analysis establishing the comparability of this sample to similarly constrained narlonal samples. 2. The critenon l w e i of nine months was selected in order to include teachers as full-time workers. 3. The questions measuring authority are "do you have the authority to hire and fire others." "do you iniluence or set me rate of pay o i others'." and "do you supervise others, that is, what they produce or how much.' ' 4. The questions measuring closeness of supervision are "someone else influences or sets my rate or amount of pay," "someone else supervises my work, that is. what I produce or how much," "someone else decides both what I do and how I do it," and "my supervisor exercises little or no control over my work" (coded negatively).

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5. The piacement of this question indicates that it is meant to elicit respondents' anticipations of their future opportunities at work. 6. Dental assistants, practical nurses, fire fighters, manhais, and police officers are excepted &om this rule and are not considered underemployed unless h e y completed at least four years of college. 7. Both household income figures were transformed to 1975 dollar values prior to the caicula5on of this vanable. In addition. both figures were transformed by the natural logarithm funcaon because of skew in their distributions. Thus, this variable can be roughly interpreted as indicating percentage differences between current household income and farmly of origin's income. 8. Employment information was asked of each responaent for a rarufomfy chosen sibling. Thus. no information is available about sister's employment for respondents whose randomiy selected sibling was a male or who had no siblings. Such cases were coded with the mean value for this variable (.47). This analysis strategy will produce a conservative estimate of the importance of comparisons involving sisters. 9. An alternative expianation for the greater satisfaction of women in female-typed occupations might focus on possible stresses for women associated with working in male-dominated env ironments.

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