Education is undoubtedly one of the biggest investments we can make in our lives, but interesting new research from the University of Notre Dame suggests that this investment doesn’t always result in improved job satisfaction. Indeed, the study goes as far as to suggest there is no link between the two at all.
“Our study shows people who have invested in formal education do not tend to be more satisfied in their jobs,” the researchers say. “We found that better-educated individuals do enjoy greater job-related resources including income, job autonomy and variety. But they also endure longer work hours and increased job pressure, intensity and urgency. On average, these demands are associated with increased stress and decreased job satisfaction, largely offsetting the positive gains associated with greater resources.”
What’s more, the researchers found that women were more likely to suffer from this negative association between education and job satisfaction, with the self-employed most likely to see a correlation between the two.
“Women still face workplace adversity that can undermine the positive returns on their educational investment,” the researchers explain. “This dynamic is particularly important given the reversal of the gender gap in education, with more women completing higher education than men. We explored the notion that the education-job satisfaction link is negative and stronger for women and discovered that, compared to their highly educated male counterparts, highly educated women experience more stress at work and lower job satisfaction.”
Building job satisfaction
The authors argue that self-employment offers a range of benefits, especially around the flexibility of one’s work schedule and autonomy over the work one does and how one responds to the demands of the job.
“We found that, compared to their wage-employed counterparts, those in self-employment seem to be more insulated from the adverse effects of education on job stress and satisfaction,” the researchers continue. “We believe illuminating this boundary condition is notable for the educated and organizations that value and want to retain their educated employees.”
Suffice to say, the researchers aren’t advocating that higher education is pointless and offers nothing to our job satisfaction, but rather to have a realistic understanding of the trade-offs between various types of working conditions and how things such as stress can impact our job satisfaction.
“Balancing those conditions that lead to both stress and job satisfaction may help workers recalibrate their values and ultimately make decisions that suit their priorities,” they conclude. “Leaders may also consider better ways to manage the greater demands encountered by their highly educated employees so that exploiting an organization’s greatest human capital does not backfire. For example, by removing incentives for employees to take on excessive work hours, organizations can avoid inadvertently pressuring employees to incur stress that undermines job satisfaction.”
