Job satisfaction among US Ph.D. graduates: the effects of gender and employment sector

In this paper we try to understand the determinants of job satisfaction. The population of US Ph.D. graduates provides a useful homogeneity - same level of education - and an interesting heterogeneity - different career outcomes, academics vs. non academics. Empirically we use the Survey of Doctorate Recipients carried out by the NSF. We estimate models on a sample of 30,000 Ph.D.s in science and engineering. Contrary to all the previous studies we find that females express themselves as less satisfied with their jobs than males. More generally, we find that job satisfaction is explained by different sets of variables respectively for males and females, and for academics and non-academics.