Job satisfaction and working life balance: A gender analysis [Soddisfazione lavorativa ed equilibrio casa-lavoro: Un’analisi di genere]

Job satisfaction is an attitude related not only to work but also to extra-work experiences, because it affects household arrangements and fertility behaviour. In a context like Italy, characterized by the male breadwinner model, men and women are expected to attach different relevance to the domains of work and family; thus, it is interesting to see how gender moderate the association between job quality and job satisfaction. In other words, if male and female workers look for different things in work, their way of living their job could be different. This work inquires if the association between job quality and job satisfaction has the same magnitude and direction for men and women, and if not, in what the gender pattern diverges. In order to link the domains of work and family, the study is focused on the time dimension of job satisfaction: indeed, this dimension is the most influent for the chance of dealing with the .double role. (paid work and duties of care), and so the most suited to explore the differences between men and women. The results underline that with low duties of care (without a young child in the household) women are more satisfied than men in good jobs, while with high duties of care (with a young child in the household) women are more satisfied than men also in jobs of medium quality. Women with high duties of care especially appreciate technical professions, such as secretary, teacher, nurse, characterized by fixed schedule and clear contents; such features connote jobs as family-friendly, allowing mothers to handle working-life balance smoothly. Besides this difference, the general pattern of response to parenthood is similar between men and women: On a demand side, this may be explained with the fact that the Italian labour market is not well suited for mothers who want to remain in the paid work, and, on a supply side, with the alignment of parenthood practices between mothers and fathers.