The role of job demands and resources for teacher job satisfaction: insights from five European countries

There is a universal agreement that the quality of the education system depends on the quality of its teachers. In order for teachers to fully exercise their professional competence, it is essential that they enjoy a favorable work environment. There are numerous factors that have been related to teachers' job satisfaction—it has been linked to teacher health general well-being, commitment and retention, instructional quality, student well-being and an overall school effectiveness. However, in spite of the importance of teachers' working conditions and their job satisfaction, large variation exists across schools and across countries. Research on teacher job satisfaction and related school working conditions is abundant internationally with a focus on single-country studies, but increasingly, researchers adopt a comparative perspective. Our study investigates the relative importance of job demands and resources in the school work environment for teacher job satisfaction in five European countries. Their choice was motivated by recent research which ranked the countries participating in TALIS 2018 study in accordance with the levels of teacher job satisfaction. We use TALIS 2018 data from the country with the highest (Austria) and lowest (Malta) latent means on teacher job satisfaction scale, as well as countries situated in the upper, middle and lower parts of the distribution: Slovenia (9), Estonia (19) and Sweden (28). Even though the countries of interest are all situated in Europe, they represent quite diverse geographical regions as well as different socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. Hierarchical linear regression was the main method of analysis. Results reveal both similar and differing national patterns in the countries of interest. Overall, job demands demonstrated a more consistent pattern of the relationships with teacher job satisfaction across countries, while the associations between job resources and teacher job satisfaction were more varied. Policy implications for raising levels of teacher job satisfaction are discussed.