Household Decisions and the Gender Gap in Job Satisfaction

Christian Bredemeier (), Patrick Ndlovu (), Suncica Vujic () and Roland Winkler ()
Additional contact information
Christian Bredemeier: University of Wuppertal
Patrick Ndlovu: University of Antwerp
Suncica Vujic: University of Antwerp

No 16760, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper offers a novel theoretical explanation for the gender gap in job satisfaction, where women typically report higher job satisfaction than men. We argue that rational family decisions can result in divergent job choices for women and men, leading to increased job satisfaction but lower earnings for women, even when their preferences and expectations align with those of men. We develop this explanation within a theoretical model of collective household decision-making that considers relative earnings disparities within households. We provide empirical evidence supporting our model's predictions utilizing survey and administrative data from Canada.

Keywords: households; job satisfaction; gender gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 J28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Scottish Journal of Political Economy , 2025, 72 (1), e12403

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16760.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Household decisions and the gender gap in job satisfaction (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16760

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().