IS JOB-SATISFACTION U-SHAPED IN AGE

It is generally believed that job satisfaction increases linearly with age. However, there are persuasive arguments, and some empirical evid ence, that the relationship is U-shaped, declining from a moderate lev el in the early years of employment and then increasing steadily up to retirement. This paper investigates that relationship, using survey r esponses from a large sample of British employees. For overall job sat isfaction, satisfaction with pay, and satisfaction with the work itsel f a strongly significant U-shape is observed. Ordered probit technique s, which take account of the ordinality of satisfaction data, are used to analyse the relationship between these forms of satisfaction and a large set of individual and job characteristics. Despite the inclusio n of 80 control variables, significant coefficients persist for the ag e and age-squared variables (the latter representing the non-linear co mponent). The paper thus provides strong evidence for a U-shaped relat ionship between age and job satisfaction. Furthermore, it is shown tha t a similar age pattern occurs for employees' context-free mental heal th, suggesting that both job satisfaction and context-free mental heal th are affected by non-job factors of life-stage and personal circumst ances. The importance of changes in expectations with increasing age i s emphasized.