Differential Associations of Subjective Well-being with Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Sample of Korean Workers

Objective: This study aims to clarify the distinction between job satisfaction and organizational commitment to elucidate their differential links to mental health and to inform occupational mental health interventions. Methods: We analyzed nationally representative data. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment were assessed using validated scales. To directly compare the strength of associations between hedonic subjective well-being and each outcome while accounting for correlated error terms, we conducted a cross-equation coefficient equality test based on seemingly unrelated estimation with robust variance estimation. Results: Hedonic Subjective well-being was positively associated with both job satisfaction and organizational commitment after covariate adjustment. However, cross-equation tests showed that the association was significantly stronger for job satisfaction. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of promoting hedonic subjective well-being as a core component of occupational mental health strategies.