Determinants of Job Satisfaction among Chinese off Farm Migrants

This study examines the effect of own income versus reference group income and the subjective factors considered important in a job for a sample of off farm migrants in China. We find that own income has a positive effect on job satisfaction while the effect of reference group income is gender specific. We find evidence that males experience a tunnelling effect (higher income coworkers increase their job satisfaction) while females experience a jealousy effect (higher income co-workers lower their job satisfaction). We explain this result in terms of men reacting more strongly in competitive environments and that in China males have better prospects for promotion. We find that compared with employees in western countries, off farm migrants in China place much more emphasis on income and less importance on collegiality and job stability. When we regress job satisfaction on the factors which off farm migrants considered very important in their job, most have a negative effect on job satisfaction, which reflects lower levels of job satisfaction among off farm migrants than previous studies suggest is the case for urban residents in China or employees in western countries. * Department of Economics, Monash University, 900 Dandenong Road,Caulfield East 3145,Vic, Australia E-mail: [email protected], Telephone: +(613) 9903 2134, Fax: +(613) 9903 1128 † Department of Management, Monash University ‡ Training Centre – Human Resources Division, Lei Shing Hong Machinery (Kunshan) Co. Ltd. © 2008 Russell Smyth, Qingguo Zhai and Xiaoxu Li All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author. DETERMINANTS OF JOB SATISFACTION AMONG CHINESE OFF FARM MIGRANTS