12/16/2019 Ageing and disability: Job satisfaction differentials across Europe - ScienceDirect

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Social Science & Medicine

Volume 72, Issue 2, January 2011, Pages 206-215

Ageing and disability: Job satisfaction differentials across Europe

Ricardo Pagan
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.007 Get rights and content

Abstract
This article analyses the levels of job satisfaction reported by older workers (aged 50–64) with and
without disabilities at a European level. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and
Retirement in Europe (2004 and 2007), we estimate job satisfaction equations for non-disabled,
non-limited disabled and limited disabled workers, and decompose the observed job satisfaction
gap by using the widely-used Oaxaca–Blinder methodology. The results show that after
controlling for some variables, older workers with disabilities who are limited in their daily
activities are less likely to be satisfied with their jobs as compared to their non-disabled
counterparts. However, after estimating separate models for each group and doing the Oaxaca–
Blinder decomposition, we found that older workers with limiting disabilities have greater
returns in terms of job satisfaction from their job characteristics (such as wages, tenure and
working in the private sector) as compared to non-disabled individuals. This finding supports the
hypothesis of lower expectations about jobs of disadvantaged groups (e.g. limited disabled
population) and has important public policy implications.

Research highlights
►We study job satisfaction reported by older workers by disability status in Europe. ►We estimate
job satisfaction equations and decompose gap using Oaxaca-Blinder method. ►Limited disabled
workers enjoy greater returns from job characteristics. ►Lower expectation hypothesis about jobs
is supported by the results.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953610007884 1/2
12/16/2019 Ageing and disability: Job satisfaction differentials across Europe - ScienceDirect

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Keywords
Job satisfaction; Disability; Older workers; Europe

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