The gender-job satisfaction paradox: the evidence of Serbia

Research Question: This study investigates gender differences in job satisfaction among employees in Serbia. Motivation: The main goal of the research is examine and providing evidence the existence and scope of the paradox of gender job satisfaction. In his paper, Clark (1997)proves that women have greater job satisfaction than men. The author suggests that, in general, the higher satisfaction of women at work may be a consequence of lower job expectations as a result of the worse position in the labor market that women have had in the past. Idea:The starting point of this research is the assumption that employed women are on average more satisfied than men, despite the inferior position they occupy in the labor market. Data:The research was conducted among 468 employees in six privately owned IT and publishing companies and one state-owned company (The Pension and Disability Insurance Fund of the Republic of Serbia).The structured questionnaire was used and distributed during January 2021. Tools: The questionnaire has two parts. The first part pertains to the respondents’ demographic information such as gender, age, level of education, the sectoral structure of the company in which they are employed, management positions and years of work experience. The second part of the questionnaire referred to questions related to job satisfaction, ie it contained 8 questions in accordance with the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire(Clark, 1997), which measured the degree of satisfaction with aspects of job including general satisfaction with current job. Findings: The results research show the women are more dissatisfied with their job compared to men, despite the fact that the distinction in job satisfaction between women and men is statistically insignificant. Finding that women on the average more dissatisfaction with their jobs than man appears to be contradictory to the most of studies report that women more satisfaction with their jobs than men. Accordingly, the idea of the gender-job satisfaction paradox in conditions of high levels of gender inequality that characterizes the labor market in Serbia cannot be confirmed and accepted as a universal phenomenon.Contribution: The paper adds existing knowledge about the job-gender paradox. Evidence that there are no differences in job satisfaction between female and male employees suggests that gender discrepancies is becoming less significant.