The effect of age on the satisfaction of academics with teaching and research

The core activities of university teachers are in the areas of teaching and research. This article addresses the effect of age on the satisfaction of academics on these activities. Towards this end, a questionnaire was designed including several demographic questions such as age, gender, and rank. The questionnaire was administered to 1,102 university teachers in the UK. A total of 554 responses were received, giving a response rate of 50.3 per cent. Our results indicate that age has quite a different effect on academic teaching staff from on academic research staff. For example, the effect of age on teaching satisfaction indicates that the job satisfaction decreases with age but at a decreasing rate. On the other hand, our results for research satisfaction indicate that age affects job satisfaction positively but at a decreasing rate. Other reported regression analyses indicate that both teaching and research job satisfaction increase with rank and that women tend to be slightly more satisfied in their career than male counterparts. The findings from the latter regression analyses reveal somewhat weak relationships.