Term Paper on

Relation between Job Satisfaction and Marital Status

Submitted by: Renuka Timilsena

Date: Jan 31, 2014

Introduction
Over the past two decades, social research has neglected the impact of marital status upon job satisfaction. Although many studies have attempted to link age, income, race, and gender with job satisfaction, they have consistently overlooked evidence of an empirical relationship between these two variables. Our study tries to examine the association between them by reviewing various literatures and researches done in this area, taking marital status as independent variable and job satisfaction as dependent. Here we try to review and analyze different literatures taking few major points as references. These points are the issues that we will deal with, in this paper.

Issues
The main issues that have been taken up for this study are: 1. Is there a relation between marital status and job satisfaction? 2. Is there any presence of biasness regarding the marital status of an employee while making employment decisions? 3. Are married men and women treated equally while making employment decisions? Why is the relation between marital status and job satisfaction significant enough? With the realization of importance of human resource management in organizations increasing globally, a rising trend of maintaining employees' relation is seen to be prevailing in most of the organizations these days (Sanborn & Oehler, 2012). And organizations to do so are looking more and more into all the possible variables that affects the job satisfaction of employees. And since marriage is considered as a state in one's individual personal life that influences their emotional well being and life satisfaction, which directly or indirectly reflects in ones work life (Flynn, 1996), the identification of the relationship seems to be significant. What is the significance of understanding biasness regarding marital status? First of all it is illegal to consider any kind of biasness while making selection decision as per Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law. And if still organizations are practicing it, even implicitly, may lead to bad culture formation and more dissatisfied employees in the organization. Because then employees (either married or unmarried, whoever organization does not prefers) will perceive as being unfairly treated by organization (Azim, Haque, & Chowdhury, 2013). And we

all know the consequences of employees not being satisfied from organization i.e. increase in absenteeism, higher turnover, lower productivity and so on (Sanborn & Oehler, 2012). What is the relevance of studying discrimination between married men and women in any organization's employment decisions? Again as mentioned above it is illegal to discriminate on this basis while making employment decisions because it falls under violation of EEO laws. And besides this, such discriminations or stereotype perception of any organization may lead it to lose a competent potential employee, who they merely rejected for being either married men or married women (Zitek, 2012).

Variables used
As it is clear from the issues mentioned above that we are focusing our study on the relationship between marital status and job satisfaction, they are the main variables that ours study revolves around. Here marital status is taken as independent and job satisfaction as dependent variable due to which we will be accessing the impact of marital status on job satisfaction, based on perception (as these variables are subjective, different for different individuals) rather than just focusing on correlation between them. What is job satisfaction? In any organization, job satisfaction reflects employee vitality (Parmar, 2012). Overall, satisfied workers tend to be more productive than their unsatisfied counterparts because they are less prone to shirking and inefficiency (Judge & Klinger, 2006). Therefore, businesses and corporations must strive to enhance employee satisfaction. This process benefits both employer and employee by maximizing an organization's overall productivity. It is important to know that there are different kinds of job satisfaction as in a whole it is actually a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Intrinsic is when workers consider only the kind of work they do, the tasks that make up the job and Extrinsic is when workers consider the conditions of work, such as their pay, coworkers, and supervisor (Adhikari, 2009). These two types are different, and it helps to look at jobs from both points of view. We know that job satisfaction is influenced by a number of variables namely: age, education, job tenure, salary, organization policies etc (Aziri, 2011). Marital Status is also one of the variables assumed to have an effect on it. And here, we try to analyze how marital status effects job satisfaction.

Before getting to the effect part, we first merely explain about what we mean here when we say marital status. Marital status is a state in one's individual personal life that influences their emotional well being and life satisfaction, which directly or indirectly reflects in ones work life (Flynn, 1996). Preliminary research suggests that marital status may account for job satisfaction discrepancies. Here we try to find the same relationship based on comparatively newer researches. And if any relation is found than this may alter long-term hiring strategies of firms which may include focusing on married job seekers and unmarried one separately. This is because employers' always prefer to hire a highly motivated employee, where higher motivation leads to higher job satisfaction (Tella, Ayeni, & Popoola, 2007). And if marital status affects job satisfaction then based on the positivity or negativity of relation between them, preferences would be developed in organizations, which is not legal (EEOC, 2013). Say if there seem to be highly positive relation between marital status and job satisfaction then obviously married job seekers would get an edge over unmarried ones.

Empirical Evidences
Specific employee attitude related to job satisfaction is of major interest in the field of organizational behavior and the practice of modern human resources management (Tett & Meyer, 2006). From this we can understand the commonsense belief that satisfied employees are more productive than those who are unsatisfied. It is also believed that satisfied employees are more committed to their jobs than their unsatisfied counterparts (Robbins & Judge, 2011). What do the past researches have to say about the relation between marital status and job satisfaction? And how prevalently is biasness practiced (if any)? Marital status is a very influential biographic variable that we assume affects job satisfaction level of the employees. And although there are not enough studies to draw any conclusion about the effect of marital status on job satisfaction but the limited research conducted on this area consistently indicates that married employees are more satisfied with their jobs than are their unmarried coworkers (Austrom et. al. 1988; Federico et. al. 1976; Garrison and Muchinsky 1977; Watson 1981). Reasons can be: added responsibilities people generally face after marriage which raises the importance of even a steady job and makes it more valuable (Knerr, 2005).

Having said this, there is increasing number of such researches on relation between marital status and job satisfaction; and we can see a new trend of emerging biases between married and unmarried job seekers (Jordan & Zitek, 2012). Although these days more and more people are delaying marriage or choosing not to marry at all, marriage is still seen as a normative developmental milestone of any country's culture (De Paulo & Morris, 2005; Morris, Sinclair, & De Paulo, 2007). Single people, especially those who are not in any romantic relationship, are perceived as less responsible, less mature, and less well-adjusted than married people (Etaugh & Birdoes, 1991; Morris, DePaulo, Hertel, & Taylor, 2008). Based on these stereotypes, single people might be expected to be seen as less committed to their jobs and less likely to succeed as employees compared to married people, and thus might be discriminated in employment decisions. And practices as such reduces satisfaction level of employees who are committed but unmarried, because if all organization based their decisions on such stereotyping then the chances of an unmarried employees getting desired job reduces leading them to settle with other than what they want and hence causing job dissatisfaction (Flynn, 1996). According to a past research that was carried out on GSS 2000 data which consist of nationwide representative sample of the United States adult citizens to analyze the relationship between marital status and job satisfaction indicates that for the past 20 years, effect of marital status on job satisfaction was ignored by researchers. And after analyzing the data, a strong correlation was found between marital status and job satisfaction for the United States adult workers. To ensure the positive relationship was accurate, age and sex was set to be the control variable. And it was concluded that married people generally posses higher job satisfaction than their single counterparts (Knerr, 2005). Is the biasness found between married men and women too? Such biases do not limit to just between married and unmarried employees as shown above, but there is also seen gender biases in the sense that married women and married men are perceived differently while making employment decisions. This issue was studied in a research by (Jordan & Zitek, 2012) where they took three samples all in different industries and three experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1, participants (29 undergraduate students including 18 women and 11 men) rated married female job applicants as less suitable for employment than their single counterpart. In Experiment 2, participants (university students: 85 women and 55 men) again perceived married

female job applicants less favorably; in contrast, male applicants were perceived more favorably when married. In Experiment 3, participants (123 students of different field: 73 women and 50 men) predicted that recently married women job performance and dedication would decline, whereas recently married men dedication was predicted to rise; this difference made participants more willing to lay off women than the men. So, based on this we can see the perception of employees, as being more or less responsible, is different in case for female and male employees or job seekers. And this may affect the job satisfaction level of women and men differently after marriage. Since the married men are perceived to be more diligent, they might get the job of their choice which may not be the case for married women (Zitek, 2012). From the same research it was found that married female job applicants were perceived less suitable for employment than their single counterparts with identical qualifications. The married women were seen as less willing to work long hours, less committed to advancing in the company, more distracted by social responsibilities and outside work, and less likely to succeed on the job. While male applicants were perceived more favorably when married than single the opposite of what was found for women. However, we cannot generalize this trend yet just based on few researches. Keeping all these findings from different researches in mind, we now can relate this with the country wise practices in identifying relationship between job satisfaction and marital status.

Current Practices and Examples

Here we have tried to include the current practices in different countries regarding how marital status and job satisfaction are related and if there is any biasness in terms of marital status or gender wise marital status. Comparison between US and UK: In terms of current practices we first perform a comparison on job satisfaction level of married v/s unmarried employees of two developed countries namely US and UK. As per the general social survey of US, married employees were seen more satisfied with their jobs. Survey also revealed that married employees were likely to be proud of the type of work they do, compared to single adults, whether divorced, separated, or never married. It showed, about 85.9 percent of married, previously-divorced adults are proud of the type of work they do, followed by 84.4 percent of always-intact married adults. This can be better explained by the graph shown below:

And it was also found that while making employment decisions a married applicant, though not on direct basis but was considered more responsible and trust worthy. This was also influenced by the nature of employer to an extent but in majority of the cases, it was seen that the preference indirectly went to married employee (Fagan & Nagai, 2006). Similarly a study done in UK states that married individual has lower job satisfaction compared to unmarried ones. This research was based on unique data of 28,240 British employees Workplace Employees Relation Survey Form. It was a matched employer-employee survey that involved interviews with employees and managers in over 3000 establishments. Here they separated the marital status into two categories as married and single. The married category included those living with spouse or partner and the single category included those who were single, widowed, divorced or separated. The analysis of data and findings showed that the married employees were less satisfied with their jobs than the single ones by all four measures of satisfaction that included pay, influence over job, sense of achievement and with respect to supervisors (Gazioglu & Tansel, 2002). Are the results contradictory or related? These results are very contradictory with the ones that we have found from researches done in US and other literature reviewed. Here on the basis of this research we assume that there lies no bias between married and unmarried employees in Britain. This can be because of two different reasons: First would be that this research is limited on just four criteria for comparing job satisfaction level of married with unmarried employees. While we know that there are many measures for job satisfaction, and had the study not been limited within just these four job satisfaction criteria there would have been chances of getting a different result. And secondly, the result could just have been guided by British people's

psychological phenomenon on marriage. In other words due to the differences in cultural aspects of these two countries. Such as people there might perceive marriage as added responsibilities that might result in raising stress level which would negatively affect job performance leading their lower score on given four job satisfaction measures. But we cannot generalize it for the population of Britain until a proper further research is conducted in this field. Where is the gender biasness more prevalent among these two countries? Now we compare US and UK in terms of gender biasness while employing married or unmarried employees. As per a research done on practices of marital biases in US, it was found that married female job applicant were rated as less suitable then married male applicants and this difference made participants willing to lay off more married female employees compared to married male (Jordan & Zitek, 2012). Likewise as per a research that includes a section for practices of marital biases in UK, it was found that married women were more satisfied compared to married men with various aspects of jobs. Some possible explanations for this finding may be the following: Women and men have different expectations from their jobs. Furthermore, their comparison groups may be different. These may have a reflection on the way they answer the job satisfaction questions. Another reason for the finding that women are more satisfied with their jobs might be that the types of jobs that men and women do are different as well as their qualifications. There may also be a participation effect. In the situations where women are a secondary bread-winner they may find it easier to leave the labor market (Gazioglu & Tansel, 2002). Is this comparison valid? Here this comparison may seem to lack validity when we look at the dates of researches we have referred to show the practices in US and UK, as research in US is of 2012 while for UK is 2002. So, we considered few recent articles regarding the practices in UK and in most of them including this one: "relationship between marital status and job satisfaction in UK", 2010 it was found that married employees are more satisfied compared to single ones, contradicting the research findings by Gazioglu and Tansel. However, due to lack of adequate researches as such in this topic in UK, the findings from this comparison need further verification.

Comparison between China and Bangladesh: According to a research conducted on Chinese participants regarding the relation between marital status and job satisfaction, it showed that married employees were more satisfied compared to unmarried. Possible explanation mentioned there was that married couples have two income sources which allowed them to be more selective in choosing job, while single individual were more likely to be forced to take and remain in jobs with low satisfaction (Nielsen & Smyth, 2006). This same research also explains gender wise differences in job satisfaction i.e. Chinese married men are more satisfied with their jobs compared to married women. Another report on married women satisfaction level compared to men in China shows the same results and explains the reasons as married women are perceived to take maternity leave and so were discriminated. This was verified with various testimonials in the report (Xi, 2013). According to a research conducted on 224 Bangladeshi respondents regarding the relation between marital status and job satisfaction, it was found that Bangladeshi employees, irrespective of gender and marital status, are moderately satisfied. No stati stically significant evidence was observed indicating differences in job satisfaction level between male and female or between married and unmarried (Azim, Haque, & Chowdhury, 2013). Nepalese Context: Women comprise more than half of Nepals 23 million people; yet they are worse off than men in terms of income, education and life expectancy. Only 27 percent of women are literate compared to 67 percent of men (JointLeapTechnologies, 2007). From this we can assume that there are comparatively less workforce comprised of women than men. In such a situation few women will be there among many men working in any organization, where there will be a high chance that their say in matters of discussion would be ignored directly or indirectly. Hence, it is lack of equal men and women ratio in any organization that leads to women dissatisfaction (LagigarnusWorldSkillDevelopmentCetre, 2006). Due to lack of relevant researches on our topics in Nepalese context we have based this under testimony of Nepalese married women and based on a Nepalese organization's indirect survey. In the organization we simply asked the ratio of married to unmarried employees and married men to married women, answer to which was much related to the researches reviewed above i.e. number of married employees were higher and number of married women compared to married men seemed a lot less and on an informal

talk with the employee of that organization we also came to know that if married then men are more preferred compared to women. However, no relevant data or information could be gathered regarding the effect of marital status on job satisfaction of Nepal besides that married or not, women seemed more dissatisfied with their jobs.

Recommendations
From above comparison between countries and other reviewed articles, reports etc we can clearly see that in maximum cases there is a presence of biases regarding preference to married or unmarried employees and further between married men and women. Few things we can do to minimize such biasness in any organization that will maintain a balance on job satisfaction level of the organization are: Abidance of Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) laws must be practiced by organization and in failure of doing so, strict penalty must be there. But then to identify this is very difficult if practiced. This is because many excuses can be made by employers for not selecting any particular candidate. So, if organization would maintain an optimal ratio of men and women in selection team, then such biasness can be minimized. Affirmative action can be taken up by organizations towards women to first bring about a balance in gender wise employees distribution in any organization. So, later on culture to promote equity also can be developed with ease. In selection process marital status must not be given any weight at all. This will help organization focus on employee's competency to perform the job while selecting rather than assuming their performance level based on marital status. However, it is seen that in many organizations this is a common practice. Based on above study we did found that there is a relation between job satisfaction and marital status and this may affect employees' performance. So, just ignoring this variable would also not result in a proper solution. Marital status either positively or negatively does affects job satisfaction of an individual; hence we can go for compensating such effect (negative if any) with better employees' relation packages, counseling facilities etc. rather than basing whole employment decision on it.

Introduction of flexible working hours can also be a way to manage the problems stated in the researches for not preferring married women as they presumed to be less willing to work long hours, less committed to advancing in the company, more distracted by social responsibilities and outside work, and less likely to succeed on the job. By this not only married women but also any employee who prefers to work from home or at their suitable time will be benefited. This will also cater some additional benefits to organizations as: better employee relationship can be maintained, image enhancement of organization and with image most of the times, the demand among consumers for that particular organization's goods or services as well increases (Sanborn & Oehler, 2012).

Conclusion
Here we compared research findings on marital status and job satisfaction between two developed and two developing countries to get an over view of: if there are any presences of country wise biases relevant to the topic. And we found that be it developed or developing country marital status in maximum cases is considered while making employment decisions which further affects employees' satisfaction level despite it being illegal. It's just that somewhere the biasness level is very high as like in China and US regarding low preference to married women (based on the report) and somewhere about neutral as like in Bangladesh. And all these sort of biasness, as we have mentioned earlier also affects the job satisfaction of employees. It was also found that, not only preference is given to married employees for being perceived to be more satisfied but also gender biasness is very prevalent. So, from comparing all the above findings of different research works, articles, reports etc we can conclude that there does lies a relationship between marital status and job satisfaction. Because human beings cannot completely separate their work and personal life and the influence of one on another is clearly experienced by all. It's just the level of work life balance that can make a difference. An individual be satisfied or unsatisfied with his/her married life will make a difference and so it would not be wrong to say marital status does effect job satisfaction. Here just the degree of affect varies with each individual's different physiological constructs like inner motivation, self esteem etc.

Bibliography
Adhikari, D. R. (2009). Human Resource Management. Kathmandu: Buddha Publications. Azim, M., Haque, M., & Chowdhury, R. (2013). An Emperical Study on Gender, Marital Status and Job Satisfaction. International Review of Management and Business Research. Aziri, B. (2011). JOB SATISFACTION: A LITERATURE REVIEW. Makedonia: Management Research and Practice. EEOC, U. (2013). Pre-Employment Inquiries and Marital Status or Number of Children. Retrieved 01 13, 2014, from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/inquiries_marital_status.cfm Fagan, P., & Nagai, A. (2006). I am Proud of the Type of Work I do. Mapping America . Flynn, G. (1996). Why Single Employees Are Angry. Backlash . Gazioglu, S., & Tansel, A. (2002). Job Satisfaction in Britain: Individual and Job related Factors. Britain: Economic Research Centre. Jordan, A., & Zitek, E. (2012). Marital Status Bias in Perceptions of Employees. Judge, T., & Klinger, R. (2006). Job Satisfaction: Subjective Well-Being at work. Florida. Knerr, M. J. (2005). An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Marital Status & Job Satisfaction. URC . Nielsen, I., & Smyth, R. (2006). JOB SATISFACTION AND RESPONSE TO INCENTIVES AMONG CHINA'S URBAN WORK FORCE. Monash University Business and Economy. Parmar, D. (2012). The Review Of Job Satisfaction. International Multidisiplinary e-journal . Sanborn, P., & Oehler, K. (2012). 2012 Trends in Global Employees Engagemennt. Tella, A., Ayeni, C., & Popoola, S. (2007). Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, and Organisational Commitment . Retrieved 01 09, 2014, from Library Philosophy and Practice : http://unllib.unl.edu/LPP/tella2.htm Tett, R., & Meyer, J. (2006, 12 7). JOB SATISFACTION, ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT, TURNOVER INTENTION, AND TURNOVER: PATH ANALYSES BASED ON META-ANALYTIC FINDINGS. Retrieved 1 9, 2014, from Personal Psychology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1993.tb00874.x/abstract

Xi, S. (2013, 07 24). Childless Married Women Face Employment Discrimination. Retrieved 01 11, 2014, from www.womenofchina.cn: http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/153188-1.htm Zitek, E. (2012, 12 10). Married women judged less suitable for employment, research reveals. Retrieved 01 10, 2014, from ILR news centre: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/news/GenderCounts_121012.html