The Effects of Education Level on Work Satisfaction
Abstract
Work satisfaction and education/degree level go hand in hand when it comes to applying for a job, staying at a job, or continuing your education to reach a higher level of a job. Although this seems like an easy fix problem, there are more details that go into dissatisfaction of a job besides just education level. Research doesn’t look deeper into this idea because often time’s employers only want to know the top layer of satisfaction in the workplace. But, one of the main ideas that many people seem to think of is education level. We are taught all throughout our careers as students, since middle school, that going to college and getting a higher degree would ensure that you will have the job that causes the most satisfaction. But what if job satisfaction isn’t just about having the highest level of degree and having the highest level of a career? To find the answer to this question, research was done on what exactly “job satisfaction” in the work place is and how employers and researchers define and measure it. Employers sent out self- surveys to their employees to determine monetary and non-monetary gains they make in the workplace. The research suggests that most assessments only care about satisfaction while being in the workplace with emphasis on work and less on the specific dimensions while being at work. This also suggest that education level isn’t often assessed by employers when determining if employees are satisfied in the workplace.
Introduction
The relationship between work satisfaction and education level/ highest degree isn’t something that is often looked at or thought about. When it comes to job satisfaction most people and studies focus on race in the workplace or even gender in the workplace. In some theories, the level of education and experience an individual has accomplished plays a large and important role when it comes to deciding a career path and, in some cases, it determines your status in said career path/ workplace. This then creates the question of if work satisfaction is based on your education level, and if so, does the higher the education level mean the higher the work satisfaction? In this literature review, I will discuss what determines work satisfaction overall along with what factors determine the relationship between work satisfaction and highest degree/ education level. I will also briefly discuss if there is a relationship between gender, education level, and work satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
To begin this literature review, we must first understand what factors determine job satisfaction on education. To determine job satisfaction, jobs often have employees take self-assessments that determine monetary and non-monetary gains they make in the workplace. The responses of these surveys are often based on personal preferences and expectations from the employees who take them (Vila, Garcia-Mora,2005). In past research, there has been 2 ways to show job satisfaction; first being that there is an importance of job satisfaction as an economic variable and second being the variable that influence an employee’s response on job satisfaction. This study found that job satisfaction depended positively in the amount of income the individual received and negatively for the amount of time spent working. Another important factor found was that these factors were very jobs specific and worker/tasks specific (Vila, Garcia-Mora,2005). This essentially meant that while job satisfaction could be measured using these variables, it was heavily based on the type of tasks individuals did and white type of job they had. This study also found that it is important to pay attention to the obvious observable factors such as wages, age, race and gender when determining and reviewing self-assessments for job satisfaction. In another study on job satisfaction, researchers found that there was a relationship between work and family. When work and family interfered satisfaction was lowered, but when family and work interfered, there was essentially no change in satisfaction (Kovner,Brewer,Wu,Cheng,Suzuki,2006).
Self-Esteem
Another factor that often gets overlooked in the relationship between work satisfaction and education level is self-esteem. Job satisfaction includes the overall enjoyment of an individual while doing their job, this includes mental and spiritual satisfaction of needs, interests, and hopes. If an individual isn’t confident in their ability to complete the tasks they are given while at work, they are more likely to be dissatisfied with said job (Alavi,Askaripur 2003). In this study where individuals were asked to complete a survey about self-esteem in the workplace, researchers found a significant relationship between self-esteem and satisfaction from a manager and supervisor; this also led to higher satisfaction from promotions. Those who had high self-esteem were also able to better converse with co-workers, thus increasing their social aspect of the workplace and increasing job satisfaction (Alavi,Askaripur 2003).
Education
While there are many studies and research on job satisfaction by itself, when it comes to education level on job satisfaction, there is very little to none research available. The idea of school and education is to prepare individuals for the labor market, in turn, how well the individual performs while in school determines their choices regarding the labor market. The better-educated the individual is, the better they are able to meet expectations and pursue their dream career opposed to those who are poorly educated. Those who are better educated are also able to make non-monetary gains like having more interesting and enjoyable tasks in the workplace, being held to a higher responsibility than their “inferior peers”, the ability to gain promotions thus being more independent in the workplace, along with working in better conditions (Vila, Garcia-Mora,2005). When it comes to research and results on the education and job satisfaction, there are often 2 conflicts in the individual reports and self-assessments with this relationship. The first being that most assessments don’t ask about education level besides level or length. This is because most individuals who believe they are overqualified for a job are more likely to be less satisfied than those who ask for education levels. The second being that most assessments only care about satisfaction while being in the workplace with emphasis on work and less on the specific dimensions while being at work. (Vila, Garcia-Mora,2005).
Data and Methods
The data used in this research are self-reports from the GSS Data Explorer. The researchers conducted three different interviews with participants that included questions about what level of education they completed and how satisfied with their job they were. Education level was defined as: little high school, high school, junior college, bachelor’s degree, graduates degree, and those who didn’t know. Job satisfaction was given on a 4 point scale of that consisted of: a little dissatisfaction, moderately satisfied, very dissatisfied, and very satisfied.
Results
Of those with the highest level of education, graduate, 12.7% stated that they were very satisfied while 10.7% stated that they were very dissatisfied. Those with the lowest level of education, little high school, and 47.0% stated that they were very satisfied while 55.3% stated that they were very dissatisfied (see Figure 1). It should be known that there were more participants who self-reported their satisfaction than those who reported that they were very dissatisfied with their job. There was a “Don’t Know” and “Not Applicable” answer in the survey but they weren’t included in the study due to it not being a definite answer. This slightly skewed the data to having less participants for some parts of the satisfaction part of the survey.
Conclusion
Based on these findings it is clear that those with a lower level of education were more dissatisfied with their job than those with a higher education. It should also be noted that those with the lowest level of education still reported being the highest percentage of those who were satisfied with their jobs. This shows that although there are some people with a lower level of education, they are still satisfied with their job and work. This also explains that education level isn’t the only factor that goes into how a job meets the satisfaction of an individual. As stated in the research, factors such as life at home and self-esteem also play a role in what happens at work. Satisfaction isn’t just one singular thing that can be measured using one variable. Moving forward, employers should include questions about not only work place satisfaction, but also education level, job confidence, and how happy they are with home life, to a respectable degree. Future research could also be done on what makes some over-qualified for a job in terms of education level and the skill set needed to complete the job.
Figure 1.
Degree Level and Job Satisfaction
Note. “Don’t know” and “Not applicable” were taken out of the graph.
Figure 2.
Number of Participants in Study
Note. Numbers of participants who self-reported in Job Satisfaction Survey
References
References
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