Does Job Satisfaction Rise and Fall with the Economy? Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Experimental Evidence That Job Satisfaction Increases during Recessions

While recessions have many adverse consequences for individuals and organizations, we propose that they have positive implications for job satisfaction. We argue that during bad economic times, people will be less attuned to other possible jobs, and more likely to see their own jobs favorably. We find support for these predictions across three studies. Study 1 (n = 23,335) utilizes a large cross-sectional survey of American adults collected over four decades and finds that job satisfaction increases during recessions and declines during booms. Study 2 (n = 12,859) replicates this result using a large longitudinal survey of British adults and finds that job satisfaction rises and falls with the unemployment rate even within the same people. Finally, Study 3 (n = 512) uses an experimental design and finds that the relationship between economic conditions and job satisfaction is mediated by the reduced salience of alternative jobs. While scholars have long recognized that job satisfaction is affected by situational features inside organizations, our findings suggest that conditions outside the workplace can also influence how people think about and evaluate their jobs.