Does Job Satisfaction Adapt to Working Conditions? An Empirical Analysis for Rotating Shift Work, Flextime, and Temporary Employment in UK

Abstract

The hedonic treadmill model for subjective well-being was subject to several recent empirical analyses based on individual panel data. Most of this adaptation literature is concentrated on how life events affect measures of life satisfaction and happiness, whereas adaptation processes of domain satisfactions like job satisfaction are largely unstudied. The aim of this paper is to test empirically adaptation processes of self-reported job satisfaction. For this purpose we consider flexibility characteristics of a job and derive hypotheses about which flexibility measures allow for or impede adaptation processes. Hypotheses are tested using data from up to 18 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We estimate fixed-effects panel models to test adaptation processes based on intra-individual changes in job satisfaction. Our results show no adaptation to rotating shift work, little adaptation to temporary employment, but full adaptation to flextime regulations.

Keywords: job satisfaction, adaptation, hedonic treadmill model, rotating shift work, temporary employment, flextime, British Household Panel Study, fixed-effects panel estimation

JEL Classification: J28, J81, M5