Does It Make Any Difference How You Feel About Your Job? An Exploratory Study of the Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Political Orientations

Does job satisfaction - as reported by the jobholder have a bearing on one's political orientations? Findings based upon five sets of political variables suggest that job satisfaction is related to politics, though not always strongly so. Dissatisfied individuals participate less, trust government less, and are more politically alienated than job-satisfied respondents. Job satisfaction cannot be characterized as a surrogate for other job- and personality-related characteristics, but has explanatory power of its own, though this power is affected when controls are introduced to the research design. While job satisfaction has important political implications, none of the relationships examined split satisfied and dissatisfied individuals into opposing majorities. In a relatively alienated, distrustful. and apathetic population, the dissatisfied are somewhat more so. The data base was NORC's General Social Survey Cumulative File 1972-1980.