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Discussion Papers

Job Disamenities, Job Satisfaction, Quit Intentions, and Actual Separations: Putting the Pieces Together

Petri Böckerman Labour Institute for Economic Research and Pekka Ilmakunnas Helsinki School of Economics and HECER

Discussion Paper No. 166 May 2007 ISSN 1795-0562

HECER – Helsinki Center of Economic Research, P.O. Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7), FI-00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND, Tel +358-9-191-28780, Fax +358-9-191-28781, E-mail info-hecer@helsinki.fi, Internet www.hecer.fi

HECER Discussion Paper No. 166

Job Disamenities, Job Satisfaction, Quit Intentions, and Actual Separations: Putting the Pieces Together*

Abstract

We analyze the potential role of adverse working conditions at the workplace in the determination of employees’quit behavior. Our data contain both detailed information on perceived job disamenities, job satisfaction, and quit intentions from a cross-section survey and information on employees’ actual job switches from longitudinal register data that can be linked to the survey. Reduced-form models show that employees facing adverse working conditions tend to have greater intentions to switch jobs and search for new matches more frequently. Multivariate probit models point out that job dissatisfaction that arises in adverse working conditions is related to job search and this in turn is related to actual job switches. JEL Classification: J28, J31, J64. Keywords: working conditions, job satisfaction, on-the-job search, job separation, quits.

Petri Böckerman Labour Institute for Economic Research Pitkänsillanranta 3 A FI-00530 Helsinki FINLAND

Pekka Ilmakunnas Department of Economics Helsinki School of Economics P.O. Box 1210 FI-00101 Helsinki FINLAND e-mail: pekka.ilmakunnas@hse.fi

e-mail: petri.bockerman@labour.fi

* This study has been funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund (Työsuojelurahasto). An earlier version of this paper...