Household decisions and the gender gap in job satisfaction

Christian Bredemeier, Patrick Ndlovu, Sunčica Vujić and Roland Winkler ()

Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 72, issue 1

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 family 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.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12403

Related works:
Working Paper: Household Decisions and the Gender Gap in Job Satisfaction (2024)
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:bla:scotjp:v:72:y:2025:i:1:n:e12403

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0036-9292

Access Statistics for this article

Scottish Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by Tim Barmby, Andrew Hughes-Hallett and Campbell Leith

More articles in Scottish Journal of Political Economy from Scottish Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().