Job Satisfaction Among Early Labor Force Participants: Unexpected Outcomes in Public and Private Sector Comparisons

This study presents a systematic investigation of the level of job satisfaction among a national cross-section of early labor force participants in the public and private employment sectors in the late 1980s. While the conventional wisdom would suggest that there is a "crisis" in the level of job satisfaction among public sector employees—due to extensive "bureaucrat bashing" and the alienative internal dynamics of working within overly rigid and rule-bound organizations—the findings presented here suggest that public sector employees manifest sig nificantly higher levels of job satisfaction than their private sector counterparts. After control ling for a variety of background, personal, and situational factors, the higher level of public sector job satisfaction remains. The empirical evidence utilized in this study is from the National Longitudinal Survey's Youth Cohort.