We all want to live happy lives. Since, for most of us, a good portion of those lives unfold at work, it follows that everyone craves happiness—or at least satisfaction—in their job. This much is obvious. What is not particularly obvious is how to go about finding this sense of satisfaction. Much research has been devoted to uncovering the right path, but the answer is not yet entirely clear. We can say, however, that many people believe they know what is right for them—how they personally will achieve satisfaction—and often it involves money. On a deep, instinctual level, we all see money as a major component, perhaps even a prerequisite, to finding happiness in work. But the empirical evidence suggests that we would be better off placing our hopes elsewhere.
How satisfied we feel in our job can play a huge role in the decisions we make—about where to work, about when to quit or go back to school, or about how much effort to expend when carrying out our responsibilities (Schneider et al., 2012). Research has identified three broad categories of job characteristics that are shown to determine satisfaction: job characteristics, social/organizational factors, and personal disposition (Schneider et al., 2012). The complexity of your job, how much autonomy you are granted, the organization’s work culture—these factors seem to matter greatly, along with plenty others (Schneider et al., 2012). If you are understimulated, never given feedback, or surrounded by a toxic culture, chances are you will dislike your job—and your performance will probably show it.
Notice, however, that “how much you are paid” did not appear in the preceding list. This is because researchers have repeatedly searched for a connection between pay and job satisfaction, and have largely come up empty-handed (contrary to all received wisdom). A meta-analysis conducted in 2010 looked at “115 correlations from 92 independent samples” and found that “both within- and between-studies, level of pay had little relation to either job or pay satisfaction” (Judge et al., 2010). Sure, some people who earn comparatively high salaries are more satisfied in their jobs relative to lower-paid workers, but the study identified many instances in which the opposite is true—for example, lawyers making about $150,000 a year who were less satisfied in their jobs than childcare workers earning just over $20,000 (Judge et al., 2010). Simply put, getting paid more to do your job does not make you more likely to enjoy it. In fact, motivational theory suggests that it may do the opposite: Getting paid large amounts of money might convince you that you only do your job to earn that nice paycheck, and once you’ve latched onto an extrinsic source of motivation, you can easily lose track of the more noble reasons you may have had when entering your career (Judge et al., 2010).
This trend, whereby increased salaries does little to boost happiness, is not only true at the individual level. Other work has shown it may be equally true for societies as a whole. It has been shown that, in the short term, when a nation increases its GDP, there is a related spike in happiness, but that after about ten years this effect wears off completely, and the citizens of that nation are, on average, about as happy as they were before their economic situation improved (Easterlin et al., 2010). This is a striking notion, one that seems to undermine one of the central assumptions in our society: That increasing our economic strength will lead to happier, better lives.
There is one caveat to all of this. Keeping in mind that pay on its own, out of context, does not seem to correlate very strongly with job satisfaction—or satisfaction in your life in general—there is one situation in which is does seem to have an effect.
A brief, personal anecdote: A few years back, an email was accidentally forwarded to me by one of my supervisors. It contained the salary information about one of my colleagues, a woman who had slightly different responsibilities but had the same job title. I alerted my supervisor to her mistake, but it was too late: I had already seen that my coworker was earning about four dollars more per hour than I was, for doing a job that, if anything, had fewer responsibilities, since I had been there longer (that translates to over $8,000 extra per year, before taxes). I felt sick to my stomach when I learned this. For a week or two, I felt less motivated, and this feeling seemed appropriate: If my supervisors pay me less than a similar employee, I must not be as valued, so why shouldn’t my performance match their regard?
Looking back, it is somewhat comforting to know that my reaction to this news was fairly typical. The one situation in which pay does effect job satisfaction is when we are comparing ourselves to other people. Research has found that when people discover that they earn less than the median worker in their pay unit, their job satisfaction plummets (Card et al, 2012). It would be intuitive to assume, then, that people who make more than their colleagues—and are aware of this discrepancy—would find increased satisfaction in their job. However, the evidence doesn’t support this. Those earning above the median do not seem to enjoy their jobs any more because of their pay level (Card et al., 2012). It is only the lower-paid workers who are influenced by their perceived compensation relative to other people. Making less money makes you miserable, but making more does not make you happy.
The most important aspect of our compensation at work (perhaps the only important aspect, beyond meeting our basic needs for survival) is how it stacks up to other people. One thought experiment gives people two options: Live in a world in which everyone is rich, but you are on the lower end of that spectrum, or live in a world in which everyone is poor, but you are the richest of the poor people. In the first world, you have more money and possessions that you would in the second world, but you’d be at the bottom when comparing yourself to everyone else. In the second, you have less, but you’re on top. Most people prefer the second, poorer world: they would rather be poor, but better off that their peers. (Frank, 2016).
This is all quite depressing, especially when we consider how much time and effort we expend trying to increase our earnings, while ignoring other work factors that might have a greater influence on how happy we are in our jobs. We’ve seen that earning more doesn’t make you happier in your job or in life—unless you already feel that other people are beating you—but perhaps the most important factor to influence how you feel about your job is whether or not you find meaning in what you do (Frank, 2016). Like the childcare workers mentioned above, it is entirely possible to be happy in your job while making very little money, as long as you see a noble purpose in your career. Reaching after ever-fatter paychecks will leave you no better off; but reevaluating your decisions, and making sure that what you do has intrinsic meaning—that you go to work because you are doing something good for society—can make all the difference.
References
Card, D., Mas, A., Moretti, E., & Saez, E. (2012). Inequality at work: The effect of peer salaries on job satisfaction. The American Economic Review, 102(6), 2981-3003. doi:10.1257/aer.102.6.2981
Easterlin, R. A., McVey, L. A., Switek, M., Sawangfa, O., & Zweig, J. S. (2010). The happiness—income paradox revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(52), 22463-22468. doi:10.1073/pnas.1015962107
Frank, R. H. (2016, ). The incalculable value of finding a job you love: Money and Business/Financial desk. New York Times
Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., Podsakoff, N. P., Shaw, J. C., & Rich, B. L. (2010). The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 77(2), 157-167. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2010.04.002
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
This was a great read. Job satisfaction is a major thing all over the world. I personally like when you included information about salaries and how salary alone does not count for job satisfaction. I know this to be true because I worked for a company where I was making 20 dollars an hour. The money was great but everyday I was stress out, it go so bad that my health started to decline. I had to choose but to leave the job if I wanted to get better. I quit my job and less than a week later my health was getting back to normal. I now make 15 dollars a hour but I am much happier so money is not everything.