JUSTICE AND THE PARADOX OF THE CONTENTED FEMALE WORKER

Studies have shown that women are as satisfied with their jobs as are their male counterparts. This finding is viewed as suggesting a parado x because women's rewards and work conditions are usually less favorab le than men's, Phelan (1994) evaluated five explanations for the parad ox but could not evaluate the possibility that perceived justice accou nts for the paradox. We evaluate the same explanations, but also exami ne the importance of perceived justice. We find, for a sample of femal e and male lawyers, that no paradox exists for job satisfaction when t he model is specified properly, For pay satisfaction, however, perceiv ed justice is critically important in explaining gender satisfaction d ifferences, but even this does not account entirely for the paradox. T he use of same-gender reference groups in evaluating justice may be re sponsible for the gap that remains, although supplemental data suggest that this is not the case for these lawyers.