Gender differences in occupations, job attributes, and job satisfaction

The purpose of this paper is to analyse gender differences in job satisfaction in Spain, considering the gender distribution across occupational categories. Based on a representative sample of Spanish employees from the Spanish Quality of Work Life Survey, we use an estimation procedure that controls for potential endogeneity, and find that greater job satisfaction of women is associated with women being happier working in occupations where they are the majority. However, when considering additional objective and self-perceived variables, gender differences in job satisfaction disappear and occupational variables turn non-significant. This result suggests that women tend to congregate in jobs with particular characteristics that are preferred by them, and negates the correlation between job satisfaction and gender distribution across occupations.