Job satisfaction of the highly educated: The role of gender, academic tenure, and earnings

The determinants of job satisfaction are estimated for PhD-level scientists in the United States across academic and nonacademic sectors. In initial estimates, female scientists report lower job satisfaction than males in academia but higher job satisfaction than males in the nonacademic sector. While academic scientists with tenure have substantially greater job satisfaction than nonacademic scientists, we show that the magnitude of this influence varies by gender. After correcting for the lower evaluation placed by females both on earnings and on tenure, female academic scientists actually match nonacademic scientists in reporting greater job satisfaction than men.