Social Comparisons and Satisfaction with Work

Two social psychological theories, relative deprivation theory and multiple discrepancies theory, suggest that individuals’ wellbeing depends, in part, on how they compare themselves to others or previously established standards. The current study uses 24 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N=9,813) and employs random- and fixed-effects models to examine whether job satisfaction is a function of four social comparisons: 1) the gap between occupational aspirations in adolescence and attainment, 2) the gap between parents’ occupational attainment and respondent’s occupational attainment, 3) the gap between siblings’ occupational attainment and respondent’s occupational attainment, and 4) the gap between predicted occupational attainment and actual occupational attainment. Findings reveal job satisfaction is negatively associated with falling short of one’s aspirations and falling short of one’s predicted occupational attainment. Exceeding one’s parents’ attainment is associated with higher odds of job satisfaction. However, associations between relative deprivation (or relative gain) and job satisfaction fades with age; young people’s satisfaction with their jobs may be swayed to a greater degree by social comparisons than older adults’ satisfaction. These findings make a unique contribution to the relative deprivation and multiple discrepancies theories, our understanding of wellbeing in relation to work, and variation over the life course.