An investigation of national trends in job satisfaction in Britain and Germany

Trends in job satisfaction in Britain and Germany are described, and potential explanations investigated. Contrary to what might be expected from popular commentary, changing job insecurity does not explain the fall in job satisfaction in either country. It is found that intensification of work effort and declining task discretion account for the fall in job satisfaction in Britain. In Germany there was a modest fall in the proportion of people working the number of hours that they wanted to. However, while working too many or too few hours is a significant source of job dissatisfaction, the changes were too small to account for the fall in job satisfaction.