Overall job satisfaction is likely to reflect the combination of partial satisfactions related to various
features of one’s job, such as pay, security, the work itself, working conditions, working hours, and the
like. The level of overall job satisfaction emerges as the weighted outcome of the individual’s job
satisfaction with each of these facets. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent and importance
of partial satisfactions in affecting and explaining overall job satisfaction. Using the European Community
Household Panel (ECHP) a two layer model is estimated which proposes that job satisfaction with
different facets of jobs are interrelated and the individual’s reported overall job satisfaction depends on the
weight that the individual allocates to each of these facets. For each of the ten countries examined,
satisfaction with the intrinsic aspects of the job is the main criterion which workers use to evaluate their
job and this is true for both the short and the long term.
